In recent decades there has been a notable expansion of statistical data produced by the public and private sectors for administrative, research, policy and evaluation programmes. This is due to advances in relatively inexpensive and efficient data collection and management of computer-readable statistical data. Corresponding changes have not occurred in the management of data collection, preservation, description and dissemination. As a result, the process by which data become accessible to social researchers and others is frustrating, time consuming, and inefficient. This paper describes the reasons for this situation: the problem-solving workstyle of social data users, the nature of the data and their relationship to computer technology, and an inchoate social science information infrastructure. Since statistical data play an increasingly important role in social research and policy decisions, social science information specialists must be prepared to meet the computer-readable statistical data user's needs. Four strategies are recommended for improving utilization of these data: improving the quality of statistical evidence, educating information professionals and end-users in numerical information, using the existing information infrastructure to preserve and disseminate data, and developing retrieval tools for improving access to information about social data.

"Standards for Maintaining, Collecting, and Presenting Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity," formerly known as "Statistical Policy Directive 15," is a classification system that has formed the basis of the U.S. government's collection and presentation of data on race and ethnicity since 1977. During the mid-1990s, it underwent a public evaluation to determine whether the racial and ethnic group categories should be revised. This article examines the history of Statistical Policy Directive 15 from its origins through October 1997 and evaluates its consequences on political, economic, and social life. Among the many lessons that government information specialists can take away from the history of Statistical Policy Directive 15 is that classification systems are not neutral tools that objectively reflect and measure the empirical world. Classification systems cannot be isolated from the larger political setting. They are tightly linked to public policies, and, in the case of racial and ethnic group classification, they constitute highly contested social policy about which there is little public consensus.

The Universal Decimal Classification (UDC) is currently used in the National Library of Liechtenstein (NLL). Librarians have been using the 1978 German medium edition â Dezimalklassifikation: Internationale Mittlere Ausgabe: FID 550â published by the German Institute for Standardization (Deutsches Institut für Normung - DIN). Since DIN ceased its activity as UDC publisher, there has been no other interest in publishing a German edition of the classification. Hence, the NLL library lacks a suitable and up-to-date UDC edition in German to extend and modernize its content indexing. In order to update information access to its collection, the NLL is faced with two options: reclassifying books to the more recent edition of the UDC or reclassifying to DDC22(Dewey Decimal Classification), recently translated and published in German. In 2007-2008, as part of a graduate library & information science programme internship, research was conducted to assess the suitability of the two classification schemes in supporting collection management and information access in the NLL - with relation to costs, work expenditure and practical classification issues. This text is a brief summary from the final research report.

Law, mission, and information management practices inhibit access to computerized administrative records produced by state government. Research use or secondary analysis is not on the agenda of the agency administrator. Computerized records are not routinely maintained or preserved. Records managers and archivists for public records do not participate in decisions about retaining or destroying computerized records. These findings emerged from a recently completed cooperative study conducted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the State Historical Society of Wisconsin on the impact of automation on state agency records keeping practices. In addition, changes in rules for access, computer-based technologies, pressures to maintain routine administration in the face of high turnover in data processing staffs, reduced budgets, and legislation to reduce paperwork pose a threat to the retention of administrative records. This article discusses the implications of the findings and trends, provides examples of data delivery failures, and recommends changes in law and administrative behavior. The authors conclude that the social scientist has a role to play in assisting government agencies in improving access to computerized administrative records.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the relationship between citation ranking and peer evaluation in assessing senior faculty research performance. Other studies typically derive their peer evaluation data directly from referees often in the form of ranking. This study uses two additional sources of peer evaluation data: citation content analysis and book review content analysis. Two main questions are investigated: (a) To what degree does citation ranking correlate with data from citation content analysis, book reviews, and peer ranking? (b) Is citation ranking a valid evaluative indicator of research performance of senior faculty members? Citation data, book reviews, and peer ranking were compiled and examined for faculty members specializing in Kurdish studies. Analysis shows that normalized citation ranking and citation content analysis data yield identical ranking results. Analysis also shows that normalized citation ranking and citation content analysis, book reviews, and peer ranking perform similarly (i.e., are highly correlated) for high-ranked and low-ranked senior scholars. Additional evaluation methods and measures that take into account the context and content of research appear to be needed to effectively evaluate senior scholars whose performance ranks relatively in the middle. Citation content analysis data did appear to give some specific and important insights into the quality of research of these middle performers, however, further analysis and research is needed to validate this finding. This study shows that citation ranking can provide a valid indicator for comparative evaluation of senior faculty research performance.

VINITI is the publisher of UDC schedules in Russian language and the only publisher that still maintains, develops and publishes a full UDC edition. Much of VINITIâ s effort is put into research and development of the classification, user support and training. Being part of the Russian Academy of Science, VINITIâ s main strength as classification publisher comes from its team of scientists, researchers and subject specialists that work on the development and maintenance of the knowledge organization terminology. VINITI maintains a Russian UDC database and is also responsible for the alignment of the UDC with the Russian Rubricator for Science and Technology, the official scientific taxonomy that serves as a unified indexing language for information exchange in the fields of scientific research and technology.

The UDC class 1 Philosophy. Psychology has remained unchanged for more than forty years. The most obvious problem with the class is an anachronistic intercalation of psychology in the middle of the class of philosophy (Task force for UDC system development, 1990), one of the still uncorrected remainders of structural problems inherited from Dewey Decimal Classification. We are now pleased to announce that the project of the revision of UDC class 1 Philosophy will take place in 2009-2010.

This article examines selected economic and social indicators of our multiracial and multiethnic society at the end of the twentieth century to provide an information base for wise decisions about effective library services. The statistical profile describes the demography, economic well-being, and education attainment of the principal racial and Hispanic origin groups. The data show that progress in our nation's well-being has occurred, but a great deal remains to be done to achieve the goals of equity and equality of opportunity.

The United States is an "interest group society" and federal statistical policy, like all other aspects of contemporary American political life, is dominated by well-organized interest groups. The public review to revise the "Standards for the Classification of Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity," formerly known as "Statistical Policy Directive 15," was notable for the significant presence of minority population interest groups. The politics of representation in the national statistical system during the 1970s is the subject of this article. The first part of the article summarizes the role that interest groups played in the recent debates on revising Statistical Policy Directive 15. The second part of the article discusses the origins of national statistics on minorities and their efforts during the 1970s to achieve inclusion in the body politic through representation in the federal statistical and administrative reporting systems.

Despite the intensive revision carried out in the past two decades, there are still some outdated parts of UDC in need of attention. Although new terminology may be added on a more specific subject level, the outdated and illogical structure of the top classes in class 9 stands out. The work on recent extensions of class 94 History has reminded us of what is still wrong in the class 9.