The Canadian Census Data Discovery Partnership: Bringing a Data Treasure Chest to Light

This talk presents the Canadian Census Data Discovery Partnership, a research project that brings together librarians and researchers from several Canadian Universities and institutions such as Statistics Canada and Library and Archives Canada. As the research project is still underway, this presentation aims to discuss the main steps that have been achieved so far and to present some early findings from the consultation process with census data users.

The Census of Canada is probably the most important single source of socio-economic data on our country and its citizens. It provides source material not only for academic research from a broad spectrum of disciplines, but also for various government agencies and community organizations, not to mention members of the public who want to stay informed on the evolution of the nation.

Finding precise information in the form of data tables or associated documentation in modern censuses (i.e. 21st century censuses and, to some extent, those from the 1990’s) may not necessarily be easy but can be managed by researchers who spend some time becoming familiar with the Census website. However, the same cannot be said for older censuses in which identifying and accessing data tables and reference products can prove to be a significant challenge. Although the vast majority of census volumes are now accessible on the Internet Archive and on the Government of Canada’s website, they are, for the most part, only available as large pdf documents. Given the very limited indexing of those documents and the fact that data tables are not catalogued or indexed individually, discovering and accessing those is akin to looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack of census past. Compounding the issue is the lack of controlled vocabulary and the evolution of subject and geographic identifiers across censuses.

The Canadian Census Data Discovery Partnership aims at facilitating this type of research. To that end, the first objective of the Partnership is to establish a complete inventory of the Census of Canada’s items (mostly data tables, maps and reference documents) going back all the way to the pre-Confederation censuses. This work is supported by the creation of a set of metadata which consists of several authority tables for aspects such as geography, subject, corporate authors, etc. Another important aspect of the project is a series of consultations with various stakeholders that include data producers as well as various types of data users (academic researchers, government researchers, policy makers, students and NGOs). At this stage, a large part of the inventory work has been completed and we have started the consultation process. The next step will be to compile and organize the survey and interview data to identify the main needs of the community. We are also at the initial stage of designing the prototype of a census data discovery portal that will eventually allow for the identification of all census products at a granular level (e.g. data table, individual refence document).

Recording: https://youtu.be/Fm1wSAsYO1A