1. Part of the Arts and Humanities Data Service and the UK Data Archive. Funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee and the Arts and Humanities Research Board. Stuck on the Census: UK Historical Censuses Online Mark Merry Gustavo de Souza Cressida Chappell Hamish James History Data Service

2. ESSHA 2002 - © History Data Service Introduction “Stuck on the Census…” We’re stuck on the census because: A lot of people still want to use census data Current data delivery systems are unwieldy and inconvenient Census data is being used in the same old way - most HDS users use census data for local studies - in teaching, census data is used to teach statistical or computing methods, rather than historical methods or 19 th century social/economic history

3. ESSHA 2002 - © History Data Service Introduction “…UK Historical Censuses Online” The solution: A new data extraction system and delivery system, brought to census users by the Contemporary and Historical Census Collection Project (CHCC) Flexible system designed to allow users to extract whatever data matches their own criteria Subsetting - national scale research - sampling on criteria other than geography - ‘all labourers living in towns’ or ‘all women aged over 60 years in London’

4. ESSHA 2002 - © History Data Service Project Objectives To promote effective student use of networked services across learning and teaching To increase the census user base in learning and teaching, and to build new user communities To improve awareness about the contexts in which census data can be used in learning and teaching To improve access to primary data sources by linking together data extraction, visualisation and exploration tools To reduce the work needed by tutors to use census data in learning and teaching

5. ESSHA 2002 - © History Data Service Project Partners MIMAS, University of Manchester School of Geography, University of Leeds Cathie Marsh Centre, University of Manchester History Data Service, University of Essex LTSN Subject Centre for History, Classics and Archaeology, University of Glasgow UK Data Archive, University of EssexTo reduce the work needed by tutors to use census data in learning and teaching

6. ESSHA 2002 - © History Data Service Project Funders/Timetable HDS responsible for the data delivery system, which is only one component of the whole project The whole project is funded by the JISC for 3 years (October 2000 – September 2003) as part of an initiative to enhance JISC services for learning and teaching Data delivery system: prototype October 2001 - testing in conjunction with learning and teaching materials Live system: June 2002

7. ESSHA 2002 - © History Data Service Machine Readable 19 th Century UK Census Data HDS individual level data: 1881 Census of England, Wales and Scotland - 100% sample created by the Genealogical Society of Utah -Revised/enriched version created by Future of Work team at the University of Essex History Department 1851 Census of England, Wales and Scotland - 2% national sample created by Dr Michael Anderson In the future: 40 small area sample studies created by academics

8. ESSHA 2002 - © History Data Service Machine Readable 19 th Century UK Census Data HDS aggregate level data: Great Britain Historical Database (1841-1939) - Employment; demography; mortality; marriage; trade union statistics; poor law statistics; small debt statistics In the future: Digest of Welsh Historical Statistics (1570-1975) - Religion; education; tourism; elections; crime; housing; transport; iron and steel; coal; agriculture; wages; labour; population Database of Irish Historical Statistics (1821-1972) - Housing; literacy; vital statistics; emigration; religion; population; famine relief; agriculture; age; language; industry; trade; occupations

9. ESSHA 2002 - © History Data Service Reason for the popularity of census data: a common set of information available for each individual in the whole country good practice Source to Resource: 1881 Census

10. ESSHA 2002 - © History Data Service good practice Source to Resource: 1881 Census

11. ESSHA 2002 - © History Data Service Census Learning and Teaching Extraction System Flexibility to handle requests for data based upon all manner of querying upon any of the fields Ability to extract data from more than one dataset at the same time Flexibility to handle requests for individual and aggregate level data separately, and at the same time Dynamically generated interface based upon the datasets being queried Ability to extract data from distributed datasets (data held in different collections in different places at the same time)

12. ESSHA 2002 - © History Data Service Census Learning and Teaching Extraction System

13. ESSHA 2002 - © History Data Service Census Learning and Teaching Extraction System

14. ESSHA 2002 - © History Data Service Census Learning and Teaching Extraction System

15. ESSHA 2002 - © History Data Service Census Learning and Teaching Extraction System

16. ESSHA 2002 - © History Data Service Census Learning and Teaching Extraction System

17. ESSHA 2002 - © History Data Service Census Learning and Teaching Extraction System

18. ESSHA 2002 - © History Data Service Census Learning and Teaching Extraction System

19. ESSHA 2002 - © History Data Service Census Learning and Teaching Extraction System

20. ESSHA 2002 - © History Data Service Census Learning and Teaching Extraction System

21. ESSHA 2002 - © History Data Service Summary: State of Play Data delivery system currently being completed Administration system being built to allow administrators to upload new datasets and input metadata Launch in June 2002 good practice

22. ESSHA 2002 - © History Data Service Links History Data Service: http://hds.essex.ac.ukhttp://hds.essex.ac.uk CHCC Project: http://www.chcc.ac.ukhttp://www.chcc.ac.uk LTSN Subject Centre for History, Classics and Archaeology: http://www.hca.ltsn.ac.uk http://www.hca.ltsn.ac.uk Census Information Gateway: http://www.census.ac.ukhttp://www.census.ac.uk