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.

Demographic Analysis with ArcGIS: Geostatistics

September 25, 2008 10:00 am - 11:30 am, O’Neill 245


GIS is an analysis tool which complements other quantitative methods used to analyze population data. The session will highlight GIS data available for research and include demonstrations of ArcGIS using cases based on Census and related data. The focus of this workshop will be on the use of ArcGIS to analyze demographic data.

Census data and GIS applications are used by community planners, marketers, managers, scientists and researchers in education, economists, sociologists, social workers, health care managers, librarians, and data administrators. International population data will also be highlighted. At Boston College GIS is used by Geology, Economics Social Work, Sociology, Nursing, History and other departments.

Co-instructors: Barbara Mento, Data/GIS Librarian and Constantin Andronache, ITS Research Services.

To register, please send email to researchservices@bc.edu with the name of this tutorial.

Introduction to ArcGIS September 18th, 2008 at 10:00 a.m.

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are used today to analyze and represent data with geographical reference on maps. Such applications are widely used in academia, private industry and government agencies and the number of applications is increasing. ArcGIS Desktop software products from the Environmental Research Systems Institute (ESRI).

ArcGIS Desktop is an integrated suite of advanced GIS applications and interfaces, including ArcMap, ArcCatalog, ArcGlobe, ArcScene, ArcToolbox, and ModelBuilder. Using these applications and interfaces, you can perform any GIS task, from simple to advanced, including mapping; geographic analysis; data editing, compilation, and management; visualization; and geoprocessing. ArcGIS Desktop is scalable to meet the needs of many types of users.

This session will introduce users to: 1) GIS software, data and technical support at Boston College; 2) License options; 3) Main ArcGIS features and capabilities (ArcMap, ArcCatalog, ArcTool, ArcGlobe); 4) Present available extensions and capabilities (Spatial Analyst, Geostatistical Analyst, etc); 5) Demos using Census data; Demos using Environmental data. Options to get data and training will be also discussed. No prior knowledge of ArcGIS is required.

September 18, 2008 10:00 am - 11:30 am, O’Neill 245

Instructors: Barbara Mento and Constantin Andronache

To register, please send email to researchservices@bc.edu with the names of the tutorials that you are interested in attending.