The last one … and reflections about new ones

The last one

This is the last one as The Globe and Mail reports

‘Statistics Canada published the last edition of its longest-running publication on Tuesday. It is the last such print publication and will not continue as an online resource. After 145 years of documenting the country’s history, the Canada Year Book will no longer be published.’

“In the future, we will have summary tables that have the exact same information as in the Canada Year Book, but it’s up to date every month or every three months…the new way of accessing information is online so we’re just moving to that,” said Statscan’s Ms. Beaudoin.

TAVIA GRANT, The Globe and Mail, Published Tuesday, Nov. 13 2012, 4:12 PM EST

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And plans …

… for ‘a book about Digital Publishing and new ways to organize, create and deliver media experience.

Publishing is emerging into a new kind of media situated directly between print, web and motion. It combines the best of these worlds and creates a completely new kind of experience.

By doing so Digital Publishing bridges the gap between so called “classic” and “new” media. Also publishing for iPad, Kindle Fire and other tablet and smartphone devices is heavily influencing the way we look at this “other” media.

This requires a completely new approach to publishing and media production.’

Official Statistics: Identify Common Challenges

In his Blog Director Groves of the US Census Bureau informs about an important discussion among his colleagues (thanks Xavier for this hint):

‘Several weeks ago, at the initiative of Brian Pink, the Australian statistician, leaders of the government statistical agencies from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom, and the United States held a summit meeting to identify common challenges and share information about current initiatives. ..

… They perceive the same likely future challenges for central government statistical agencies, and they are making similar organizational changes to prepare for the future. …

Ingredients of the future vision:

1. The volume of data generated outside the government statistical systems is increasing much faster than the volume of data collected by the statistical systems; almost all of these data are digitized in electronic files.
2. As this occurs, the leaders expect that relative cost, timeliness, and effectiveness of traditional survey and census approaches of the agencies may become less attractive.
3. Blending together multiple available data sources (administrative and other records) with traditional surveys and censuses (using paper, internet, telephone, face-to-face interviewing) to create high quality, timely statistics that tell a coherent story of economic, social and environmental progress must become a major focus of central government statistical agencies.
4. This requires efficient record linkage capabilities, the building of master universe frames that act as core infrastructure to the blending of data sources, and the use of modern statistical modeling to combine data sources with highest accuracy.
5. Agencies will need to develop the analytical and communication capabilities to distill insights from more integrated views of the world and impart a stronger systems view across government and private sector information.
6. There are growing demands from researchers and policy-related organizations to analyze the micro-data collected by the agencies, to extract more information from the data.

… In short, the five countries are actively inventing a future unlike the past, requiring new ways of thinking and calling for new skills.  The payoff sought is timelier, more trustworthy, and lower cost statistical information measuring new components of the society, economy, and environment, telling a richer story of our countries’ progress. ‘

Read the full blog post here: http://directorsblog.blogs.census.gov/2012/02/02/national-statistical-offices-independent-identical-simultaneous-actions-thousands-of-miles-apart/

Statcan: Data for free starting February 2012

‘All of Statistics Canada’s standard online products, including the census, socioeconomic and geographic data, will be offered to the public for free starting February 2012. Read more on Embassy  (Canada’s foreign policy newspaper).