ICPSR is host of new United States Census Bureau Data Repository
ANN ARBOR — A new US Census Bureau Data Repository has been launched to preserve and disseminate survey instruments, specifications, data dictionaries, codebooks, and other materials
provided by the Census Bureau. The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), the host of this repository, has also listed additional Census-related data collections from its larger holdings.
This repository helps fulfill key recommendations made by the 2017 “Report of the Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking.” Specifically, the repository improves transparency by establishing a “searchable inventory, through which the public can learn about the data that government collects.” The robust metadata also enable “researchers inside and outside government … [to] be better able to identify which data are needed and useful for answering policy questions, conducting program evaluations, and reducing inefficient and unnecessary data requests.”
This repository continues the long-standing partnership between the US Census Bureau and ICPSR, dating back to the 1960s. During that time, ICPSR digitized historical population and demographic data from the published reports of the US decennial census from 1790 to 1970, and made them available to the scholarly community. Several individuals and groups have supported the development of this repository, including Bonnie Moore (US Census Bureau), Todd Gardner (US Census Bureau), Jared Lyle (ICPSR), the NSF-Census Research Network, and the Federal Statistical Research Data Centers.
“We are proud to host the repository, which is using ICPSR's new technology platform, Archonnex,” said ICPSR Director Margaret Levenstein.
“The statistics produced by the US Census Bureau have immense value, both current and historical. We are delighted to partner with ICPSR, one of the most respected data curation institutions in the world. In doing so, we honor the trust our respondents have shown that the Census Bureau will preserve the critical metadata needed to interpret our statistics into the indefinite future.” said John Abowd, Chief Scientist and Associate Director for Research Methodology, US Census Bureau.
More information:
United States Census Bureau Data Repository
The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)
Report of the Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking
Contact: Jared Lyle
Jan 30, 2018