DPLS News February 1994 Gopher Redux! In the November 1993 issue of DPLS News we told you about WiscINFO's new Gopher server, and the information it provides about data available at the DPLS. Inthis issue we would like to announce a very important and exciting addition tothe information about the DPLS accessible via Gopher--the availability of theDPLS Catalog of Holdings. You can now use Gopher to search for specific titlesheld by the library. From WiscINFO, select "Library Catalogs and Services," then "Selected UW Madison Libraries," then "Data and Program Library Service,"and finally "Holdings and Use of the Data and Program Library Service." Whileour Gopher-based catalog allows you to search for specific authors or wordswithin titles, we recommend that you look at "Holdings of the ICPSR" if youwant to browse, do a subject search, or read descriptions of the data. The staff of the Data Library is very interested to hear your comments and suggestions about the holdings information that is presented in the campus Gopher system. Please let us know if you find it useful. Information Superhighway For those of us who are accustomed to routine use of the Internet for our work, research, communication, and even recreation, the politics surrounding the Clinton/Gore initiative for a National Information Infrastructure (NII) may seem remote. Yet we are increasingly reminded in the popular media that change is afoot: that the Internet is expanding, that networking is something to be done in the household, not only at the office or university, that soon ourcable televisions and telephones will be digitized and serviced by a singlecompany, and that virtual reality is not just for "cyberpunks" anymore. The Internet is made up of a number of regional networks connected through "gateways" as developed originally by the Department of Defense's ARPANET in the 1970s. Universities and other research institutions were generally "connected" in the mid-1980s with government subsidy in the form of the National Science Foundation's NSFNet, also known as the NSF "backbone." The scheduled discontinuation of the NSFNet signals the Administration's dedicationto turning over ownership and operation of the network "infrastructure" to private hands. The NSF is now involved in the National Research and Education Network (NREN) established in the 1991 High Performance Computing Act. This is a "testbed" program for exploring high capacity (i.e. billion bit per second) networking, primarily among the supercomputing sites. The investment by telecommunications companies in fiber-optic cables will potentially make it easier for them toadopt the newer technologies discovered in the testbed program. This in turnwill increase the multimedia potential of the network, which may lead to more "user-friendly" network applications for users. Vice President Gore has announced five principles expressing the administration's approach to advancing the NII: 1) encourage private investment; 2) provide and protect competition; 3) provide open access to the network; 4) avoid creating information `haves and have nots'; 5) encourage flexible and responsive government action. To what degree these principles can actually be achieved remains to be seen. For example, how does the recent merger of TCI and Bell Atlantic undermine the government's wish to "provide and protect competition" among companies? How can private enterprise "avoid creating information `haves and have nots'" when years of government subsidy failed to avoid just such a situation? Will thegovernment be equally "responsive" to the public interest community as it isto the telecommunications and information industries? How will "open access"be interpreted--will it be limited to the notion of potential "universalservice" in the telephone hook-up sense (connecting a cable to every house) orwill there be subsidies for low-income customers to acquire computers andtraining for network use? In addition, in what ways will "open access" to resources be limited by the commercialization of networked information? How will the "culture" of the Internet be affected? Will the spread of interactive (participative) networking prevent the technology from becoming just another "mass media" for personal consumption? How will major issues such as privacy, copyright protection and the distribution of government information finally be resolved in the electronic environment? Certainly the President's call for the private sector to "connect every clinic, every library, [and] every hospital in America into a national information superhighway by the year 2000," is laudable. The opportunities presented by the NII seem impressive, while future obstacles are hard to predict. Librariesof all types will be affected, and will need to extend every effort to ensurethat "open access" is more than a rhetorical statement. NII Gopher & Other Resources The Information Infrastructure Task Force has established a gopher server for the public. Menu items include Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), a directory of contact people, press releases, a calendar of events, IITF committee reports and minutes, speeches, documents and papers, and selected legislation.To monitor the administration's efforts on the NII initiative, you can gopher to iitf.doc.gov (or telnet and login as "gopher"). Interested groups with alternative viewpoints include Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (ftp to ftp.cpsr.org, look in directory /nii); American Library Association (the Washington Office posts relevant legislative updates to the ALAWON listserver, ALA-WO@UICVM.BITNET); and the Electronic Frontier Foundation(using WiscINFO) you can find it alphabetically in the "all the gopher serversin the world" listing). Recent Data Acquisitions Unless otherwise specified, the following datasets reside on 9-track magnetic tape. Documentation is shelved in the library by the DPLS call number following each citation. Panel Study of Income Dynamics, 1968-1989 [Waves I-XXII]. A new file structure was used to produce the CD-ROM version of these data. The traditional cross -year family-individual files are replaced by separate single-year family filesand a cross-year individual file. (CA-016-045) James A. Davis and Tom W. Smith. General Social Surveys, 1972-1993: [Cumulative File]. This dataset merges 19 years of the General Social Surveys. The 1993 topical module focused on culture, with additional questions covering scientific and environmental knowledge, and perceptions of poverty. (SA-003-018) United States Department of Justice. Immigration and Naturalization Service. Immigrants Admitted to the United States, 1989, 1990, and 1991. These files contain information on the characteristics of aliens who became legal permanent residents of the United States. (SC-010-001,-002, -003) Karlheinz Reif and Anna Melich. Euro-Barometer 38.0: European Court of Justice, Passive Smoking, and Consumer Issues, September-October 1992. This latest round of Euro-Barometer surveys focused on the current status and continuing development of the European Community. Interviews took place in the 12 member nations of the European Community. (LA-527-035). U.S. Dept. of Commerce. Bureau of the Census. Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) 1987 Full Panel Microdata Research File on CD-ROM. This file was constructed by the Data User Service Division in the Bureau of Censusto improve access to longitudinal data from the 1987 full panel. Basic demographic, social and economic characteristics data for each member of the household during the first 7 interviews are included. SIPP 1988 Full Panel on CD-ROM is also available at DPLS. (CA-043-021 and CA-043-022) These are just a few examples of data recently received at the library. For a complete listing of available data check our Catalog of Holdings accessible through the campus Gopher, or come visit us. Recent Publication News A number of past and present DPLS users have recently published research based on the National Longitudinal Surveys of Labor Market Experience (NLS). These include Peter Brandon, Pamela Smock, Roger Wojtkiweicz, Irwin Garfinkel and Sara Mclanahan. If you are working on a publication that uses NLS data, remember that the Center for Human Resource Research keeps track of all in-progress and completed research. For more information, see the DPLS staff. NLSY Data Users Alert! The Center for Human Resource Research publishes error reports for all five National Longitudinal Survey cohorts. They have recently identified errors in the NLSY for the following variables: Supplemental College FICE Codes, Hours Worked per Week, and Job Linking. For detailed information stop by the DPLS and ask for the latest NLS UPDATE No. 77, Fall 1993. The Internet Corner Government Information--Revisited In past newsletters we have pointed out sources for government data on the Internet such as the Department of Commerce's Economic Bulletin Board. While we wait for the Government Information Locator Service to become a network reality, one "economical" way of shopping for government information on the "net" is by using the University of California Irvine's specially constructed gopher menu for government info. First, telnet to cwis.oac.uci.edu and login as "gopher". At the menu, follow the path: The World/Internet Assistance/GOPHERS: United States GOVERNMENT Gophers. You will find a wide selection of descriptions, announcements, and reports posted by various federal agencies, such as the Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics. Other interesting items (also available elsewhere) include a "Citizen's Guide to the Freedom of Information Act", "White House Information" including recent press releases, and full-text Supreme Court Opinions. (This "tip" comes from an article in the Interpersonal Computing and Technology: An Electronic Journal for the 21st Century written by C. Diane Bradley.) COOMBSQUEST at ANU for Demography Australia National University's new Social Sciences & Humanities Information Facility provides a wealth of "sources of public documentation useful to demographers", as announced by Gavin Longmuir of ANU and cross-posted to the sos-data listserver. A cursory look at the gopher site shows a plethora of resources for demographers and other social scientists: WAIS-based searching of dozens of locally maintained databases and an ftp-site of archival papers in the subject areas of "Australia, Pacific Region, SouthEast and NorthEast Asia, as well as Buddhism, Taoism, Shamanism and other oriental religions," and a "unique directory of pointers to the world's leading soc.sci. and humanities gophers." To connect through WiscInfo, choose Other Information Sources.../World-wide Gopher Servers/Pacific /Australia National University/ANUNetworked Information Servers. HIV/AIDS Surveillance Database via FTP This database, produced by the Bureau of the Census' Center for International Research covers epidemiological information for developing countries presented at two 1992 international conferences plus additional material from otherpublications. The database, available through CIESIN, comes as a DOS executable file, requiring 11 MB free disk space (check "readme.1st"). To retrieve the entire database, ftp to ftp.ciesin.org, login as "ftp" and "cd" to holdings/data_sets/100628.aids/dos. The file is called "aidsnet.exe" (which should be transferred in binary mode). 1993 Rural-Urban Continuum Codes A posting on the listserv RURSOC-L has announced public availability of the "Beale codes" for counties. This classification breaks down the standard Bureau of the Census categories of "metro" and "nonmetro" into 10 smaller categories. Researchers can use this codification to analyze trends in population density and metro influence. The file is about 2.5 megabytes, and contains data for 3140 counties. The variables are FIPS code, state abbreviation, county name, and rural-urban code. To request the datafile, send the command "get code93 data" to Listserv@ERS.Bitnet. Send questions to TPARKER@ERS.Bitnet.