U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science
Statistics and Surveys
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Yesterday, I finished updating PLDF3, the longitudinal file of unimputed FSCS data to include the FY 2003 data recently released by NCES. The main URL is here:
http://www.nclis.gov/statsurv/NCES/pldf3/index.html
I have revised it to, I hope, make it more comprehensible. There are now 146,476 observations in the dataset—an observation being the data for one library or system for one year.
The data, complete files or spreadsheets of each state’s data, are here:
http://www.nclis.gov/statsurv/NCES/pldf3/data.html
If you would prefer a CD, let me know. Also, please let me know of any problems.
In June, I updated the State Summary data file:
http://www.nclis.gov/statsurv/NCES/pusum/index.html
This file has state summary data, with imputations left in. Each state’s data summarize the data from the libraries and systems in the state for any given year. I have been using this set of data to do some analysis of trends affecting public libraries in the US:
http://www.libraryndp.info/nces_2003_data.html#trends
Those are starting to turn up some interesting results and they are easier to understand than the more academically rigorous trend analysis I have on the NCLIS site. I will update them next and that will allow us to bracket what is going on.
Bob Molyneux
Chief Statistician
101 Washington Street, S.E.
Huntsville, AL 35801-4827
Phone: 256-704-7019 Fax: 256-704-7007
bob.molyneux@sirsidynix.com
