Free ICPSR Webinar: Enhancing Analysis of Racially & Ethnically Underrepresented Populations in the US

Space is limited. Reserve your Webinar seat now
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM EST

ICPSR’s Minority Data Resource Center offers streamlined access to data that are relevant to the study of immigration, place of origin, ancestry, ethnicity, and race in the United Sates.

The topics available for analysis are vast. Here are just a few intriguing findings from data featured in the MDRC:

• Female slaves in the state of South Carolina were valued at nearly twice the dollar value as males.
• The Crow and Chippewa Tribe Family Size Suffered the Largest Decrease from 1885 to 1930.
• Non-Hispanic Black Children Most Likely to be Diagnosed with Asthma (2004).
• Hispanic Voters Experienced Difficulty Casting Votes (2002 mid-term elections).
• Hospital Admissions Vary by Race (2004).

This webinar will serve as an orientation to the Minority Data Resource Center, its content, and its online analytic tools!

This webinar is open to the public - please forward this invitation to all with interest in these topics!

System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 2000, XP Home, XP Pro, 2003 Server, Vista

Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.4 (Tiger®) or newer

GIS Week Nov. 17-21, 2008

The Boston College Libraries have partnered with ITS Research Services for over 10 years to support the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in both teaching and research across campus. Mapping data is a part of our daily lives with more people using Google Earth and Google Maps everyday and interactive mapping such as we experienced throughout Election Day.


Learn more about GIS at our workshops offered to both faculty and students every semester. These hands on sessions highlight our GIS data collection and demonstrate how GIS is used on campus and throughout the world. For more information about our collection and software go to our research guide: Finding Spatial Data for Mapping

For local and nationwide events this week go to GIS Day website. Click on "find an event near you".

Ask us about GIS!

If you are interested in more information or a GIS demonstration please contact Barbara Mento, Data/GIS Manager or Constantin Andronache, ITS Research Services

New OECD Interface and Expanded Content!

The new OECD interface, OECD.Stat Extracts, makes it easier to download large amounts of international data into Excel! This database now includes most of the OECD data in one data warehouse, including OECD Health Data, previously provided by the library on CD ROM.

Search by keyword or topics such as demographics, economic indicators, education, environment, health, industry and services, prices and purchasing parity, social and welfare, and more. You can also request regional and country statistical profiles.

OECD Spotlight on Statistics

A new feature of OECD news spotlights timely statistics of topical interest:

Rich man, poor man
posted Wednesday, October 22, 2008 5:09 PM

"Income inequality grew in most OECD countries between the mid 1980s and the mid 2000s. On average the income of the richest 10 percent of the population is now almost nine times higher than the poorest 10 percent. In Denmark and Sweden the gap is narrower with the richest 10% earning on average less than five times the poorest.

Only a few countries bucked the trend: France, Greece and Spain moved towards greater equality of incomes over the past 20 years.

The United States has one of the highest levels of inequality with the average earnings of the richest 10 % of the population 16 times higher than the poorest 10 percent. The gap between rich and poor in the US has also widened more rapidly than in most other countries over the past 20 years."

Secondary Research Data Resources at BC

October 23, 2008 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm, Gasson 9 Boston College offers many sources and repositories of data for secondary research in the social sciences, education, nursing, economics, business and other disciplines. This workshop is particularly geared to researchers who need to access, analyze and manipulate data from BC's subscription data repositories. This tutorial will help you: find the data you need for your research or class project; learn about the Boston College collection of data resources in the Statistical Data Catalog; and how to download the data onto your desktop, including how to import into quantitative analytical tools such as SPSS. Get a tour of the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, a data archive that includes over 5,000 datasets. We will also discuss the library’s guides to key Business, Economics, Education, Health, and General U.S. and cross-national data sources. Topics may be customized based on attendees’ research interests.

Co-instructors: Rani Dalgin, ITS Research Services and Barbara Mento, Data/GIS Librarian To sign up for a tutorial, please send email to researchservices@bc.edu with the name of the tutorial.

E-LEARNING: Using WRDS Effectively: Research and Teaching

This notice appeared in the WRDS September Newsletter with an elearning opportunity for BC faculty and students:

WRDS is pleased to announce 4 upcoming training sessions.
Please note: All presentations will cover the same content
Topic: Using WRDS Effectively: Research and Teaching
Duration: 1 hour
Location: Online (WebEx)
Description: Provides an overview of the WRDS system and describes the various ways a faculty member, researcher, librarian or student can obtain and analyze data easily and efficiently.
Objectives: Understand the various Web features of the WRDS system.
Learn how to use SAS on your PC to obtain and analyze data.
Learn how to connect to the WRDS system and use SAS on Unix.
Schedule: Every 3rd Friday, via WebEx: September through December 2008.
Date/Time:

October 17, 2008 10:00am EDT hosted by: Mireia Gine and Luis Palacios
November 21, 2008 3:00pm EDT hosted by: Luis Palacios and Mark Keintz
December 19, 2008 10:00am EDT hosted by: Mireia Gine and Yuxing Yan
We tried to take into consideration the need for convenient training times for our international subscribers.

Please let us know if you need additional assistance by emailing Rnuss@wharton.upenn.edu.

To participate in a training session:
Please register at http://wrds.wharton.upenn.edu/elearning/calendar.html

Important Notice: TAQ Downtime: On Thursday, September 25

Important Notice: TAQ Downtime: On Thursday, September 25, TAQ data for months February through May of 2008 will be unavailable. This will affect both web and Unix users. We apologize for the inconvenience.