Benchmarks: Controlling digital data

Journal of the Association for History and Computing

Volumn 6, Issue 1, 2003, Pages

  Andersen, Deborah Lines ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

COMPUTER HARDWARE; COMPUTER SOFTWARE; DATA PROCESSING; DIGITAL LIBRARIES; DIGITAL STORAGE; METADATA; PUBLIC POLICY; WORD PROCESSING;

CENSUS; ELECTRONIC DATA;

BENCHMARKING;

EID: 2942702138     PISSN: 19375905     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (14)

1. "Benchmark," American Heritage Dictionary, 4th ed., 2000.
2. Thanks to Seamus Ross, of HATII, for this story. I do not doubt its veracity, but, per the discussion of this column, would like some documentation to back it up before calling it the Truth.
3. See http://www.archives.gov/search/index.html for the search engine for the National Archives and Records Administration's (NARA) files. Upon entering "Vietnam War" on March 7, 2003, 10,280 results emerged. There is a lot of information on the Vietnam War.
4. Again, if any reader knows the citation for such a resolution, this writer would appreciate an email.
5. Looking at the NARA site (see note 3 above), it is apparent that although indexed through the site, the actual locations of the digital records are disparate. According to the story driving this column, the NARA did have the ability to access and change the database in question.
6. "Data about data. In data processing, meta-data is definitional data that provides information about or documentation of other data managed within an application or environment. For example, meta-data would document data about data elements or attributes, (name, size, data type, etc) and data about records or data structures (length, fields, columns, etc) and data about data (where it is located, how it is associated, ownership, etc.). Meta-data may include descriptive information about the context, quality and condition, or characteristics of the data." This definition and explanation are from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing at http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/.
7. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991.
8. See http://www.dohistory.org for the interactive site that contains Martha Ballard's diaries so that the user can explore historical interpretations of these texts.
9. National Geographic's online news site at http://news.nationalgeographic. com publishes these sorts of findings about ancient civilizations and interpretation of artifacts they left behind. The March 6, 2003 issue contained "Did Neanderthals Lack Smarts to Survive?" and specifically looked at fossils and artifacts to draw its conclusions.
10. One can look at a variety of examples of presidential libraries through their online faces. The Clinton library is at http://Clinton.archives.gov. The senior George Bush's library is at http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu, while Gerald Ford's library is at http://www.ford.utexas.edu/ It is worth noting that while the National Archives and Records Administration has links to these websites, they have a variety of url endings, indicating the location of the libraries in multiple organizational venues, governmental and educational among them.
11. See the US Census Bureau's website at http://www.census.gov, Their mission statement is "to be the preeminent collector and provider of timely, relevant, and quality data about the people and economy of the United States."
12. See http://www.census.gov/acsd/www/history.html for a history of the US census, its roots, and the changes that have taken place in its administration over the years, and: http://www.census.gov/mso/www/centennial/works.htm for a more detailed explanation called, "How the Census Works."
13. The 1790 census asked name, occupation, and date of birth. Each 10 years thereafter the data fields became more numerous.
14. A percentage of households is randomly selected by the US Census bureau to participate in the long form, adding economic and demographic information for analysis.