Collection and Services

Collection

Microdata is the raw data used to calculate statistics and can be manipulated with software such as SAS or SPSS
As a member of two major consortia - Statistics Canada's Data Liberation Initiative (DLI) and Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), Library Data Service regularly acquires new microdata files.
The DLI microdata files contain information on Canadian statistics collected from different surveys conducted by Statistics Canada such as National Population Health Survey, National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth, Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics etc.
The ICPSR microdata files contain mainly US survey statistics such as the General Social Survey, Current Population Survey, American National Election Study, 2000: Pre- And Post-election Survey etc.

Aggregate data consists of facts or figures and is used to prove a point using totals, sums or averages.
Library Data Service provides access to aggregate data (Canadian, US & International) on either CD-Rom or through self-serve Web pages (e.g. Cansim, E-Stat and more)

To book an appointment with the Data Specialist (Mills, 1st floor, L111), please contact Vivek Jadon at 905.525.9140, ext. 23848 or email libdata@mcmaster.ca