Much of the data from the A*CENSUS
(the survey of individual archivists conducted in 2004) is now available
in tables that break it out by state.
Go to http://www.archivists.org/a-census/index.asp
and scroll down to the section labeled "A-CENSUS
Data Tabulated by State." The tables are
available in three separate sets of Excel spreadsheets (grouped under
the
general categories of Employment, Education, and Career Path). Each
of the
spreadsheets is also available as a PDF if you just want to see the
data
without being able to manipulate it.
There's a huge amount of information here that should
be valuable in
learning more about people who work in all kinds of archival repositories
in
your state. The Wisconsin SHRAB has already used the data to help with
its
strategic planning this year.
The easiest way to get
an overview of what's available is to start by
downloading the document, "Questions
Included in A*CENSUS Tables for Data from Each State." It
is itself a PDF that lists the questions from the survey that are covered
in these tables along with the possible responses
for each. You'll want to print this out for
reference as you look at the tables.
At the beginning of each of the three sections is
a hot link to the Excel
file containing tables for that section. Immediately following each
question
is a hot link to the individual PDF version of the table for that question's
data.
(Note that the hot links are *not* underlined, but
your cursor will change
to a pointing hand when you scroll over the top of each one.)
Many of you know that Vicki Walch, CoSA's Program
Director, has been working on the A*CENSUS project independent of her
CoSA employment. The two projects complement each other well and together
provide a more thorough view of state repositories and the people who
staff them. Vicki prepared the tables, so she can probably answer any
specific questions you have about the data (vwalch@statearchivists.org).
A full report on the A*CENSUS will be available by the end of the year.
Brian Doyle at SAA spent many hours converting the
Excel files to PDFs and
deserves considerable thanks for making them accessible via the web.