As some of you know, the Dude is working to clear up some of the questions that the Census folks have regarding our submitted public library survey data. You may have received a phone call or e-mail with questions about your survey. If you don’t care about the process, skip to the second paragraph below. If you do, read on. As a matter of explanation, IMLS (the Institute of Museum and Library Services) is the agency that oversees the public library survey. The U.S. Census Bureau is the agency that works for IMLS to collect the data. Individual libraries in Nebraska submit their survey data online via Bibliostat (there are other methods, but we use Bibliostat), between the middle of November and the middle of February. Bibliostat has edit checks built into the program to flag certain questions (e.g. if there was a large change from last year), and in order to pass the edit check you need to explain the differences in a note. Once your surveys are submitted, they are reviewed and you might be contacted by the Dude if there are additional questions. Once that is cleared up and all of the surveys are submitted, finalized, and locked, Bibliostat sends us the files of the compiled data and we submit them to Census. When the data goes to Census, there are additional edit checks (both critical and non-critical) that we must pass in order to submit the data. Once that occurs, Census looks over everything and then sends us another file with follow up questions. Generally, this is because there are inconsistencies in the notes that explain the inconsistencies in the data.
UPDATE: Throughout this process, you should be reminded of the codes that Bibliostat and Census use for data that is reported. Now, these codes are -3 (not applicable), -1 (not collected), and just plain ol’ 0. The Dude had previously reported using these codes in your surveys, but was recently told by Bibliostat that they prefer either N/A or 0. They then convert those entries to either -1’s or -3’s for the federal elements. The Dude does ask that for these you include a note indication “not collected” if the question is relevant but you just didn’t collect the data. Shaka.
As some of you know, the Dude is working to clear up some of the questions that the Census folks have regarding our submitted public library survey data. You may have received a phone call or e-mail with questions about your survey. If you don’t care about the process, skip to the second paragraph below. If you do, read on. As a matter of explanation, IMLS (the Institute of Museum and Library Services) is the agency that oversees the public library survey. The U.S. Census Bureau is the agency that works for IMLS to collect the data. Individual libraries in Nebraska submit their survey data online via Bibliostat (there are other methods, but we use Bibliostat), between the middle of November and the middle of February. Bibliostat has edit checks built into the program to flag certain questions (e.g. if there was a large change from last year), and in order to pass the edit check you need to explain the differences in a note. Once your surveys are submitted, they are reviewed and you might be contacted by the Dude if there are additional questions. Once that is cleared up and all of the surveys are submitted, finalized, and locked, Bibliostat sends us the files of the compiled data and we submit them to Census. When the data goes to Census, there are additional edit checks (both critical and non-critical) that we must pass in order to submit the data. Once that occurs, Census looks over everything and then sends us another file with follow up questions. Generally, this is because there are inconsistencies in the notes that explain the inconsistencies in the data.
UPDATE: Throughout this process, you should be reminded of the codes that Bibliostat and Census use for data that is reported. Now, these codes are -3 (not applicable), -1 (not collected), and just plain ol’ 0. The Dude had previously reported using these codes in your surveys, but was recently told by Bibliostat that they prefer either N/A or 0. They then convert those entries to either -1’s or -3’s for the federal elements. The Dude does ask that for these you include a note indication “not collected” if the question is relevant but you just didn’t collect the data. Shaka.
