Biostatistician Andrew Vickers writes in the New York Times that many cancer researchers refuse to share their data, even when sharing it could potentially save lives.The National Institutes of Health (NIH) request that researchers they fund share their data:

The NIH expects and supports the timely release and sharing of final research data from NIH-supported studies for use by other researchers. Starting with the October 1, 2003 receipt date, investigators submitting an NIH application seeking $500,000 or more in direct costs in any single year are expected to include a plan for data sharing or state why data sharing is not possible. (NIH Data Sharing Policy)

Information Core staff will be attending the National Symposium on Family Issues October 8-9. The PRI Library will be open but unstaffed. If you have urgent requests, please contact us by the end of the day today.

Tara Murray and Kiet Bang will be out of the office attending meetings Sept. 12-14. During that time, please send requests to library@pop.psu.edu. Some requests may have to wait until Sept. 17—if you have an urgent request, please let us know as soon as possible.

Kiet Bang, data archivist, will be attending the IASSIST conference May 14-18. During this time, PRI affiliates should send data requests or questions to library@pop.psu.edu.

Kiet Bang and Tara Murray will be away March 26-30 attending the APLIC-I and PAA meetings. PRI affiliates should send any requests to library@pop.psu.edu and be advised that some requests may take longer than usual to fill.

I am pleased to announce that Kiet Bang, formerly PRI’s library assistant, will be our new data archivist.

Kiet brings a great deal of experience to the data archive. He has gained familiarity with demographic data and population research during his 5 years at PRI. Prior to coming to Penn State, Kiet worked with serials and government document collections at the University of California, Davis.

While Kiet becomes familiar with the data archive, Lisa Broniszewski, data archive assistant, will be in the office 2 days a week. In order to get the fastest and best response, PRI faculty and graduate students should send data questions to library@pop.psu.edu.

Information Core staff will be out of the office Friday, September 1.

The PRI Library (707 Oswald) will be open normal hours on Friday, September 1. The library will be closed on Monday, September 4 for Labor Day. Anyone with ID card access to the library will be able to access the library any time.

Experiencing information overload? Have no fear, help is here!

The PRI Information Core is proud to announce a new Web-based current awareness resource that will “lighten the load.”

You are currently reading an entry in News from the PRI Library and Data Archive.

News from the PRI Library and Data Archive allows you to select the news alerts you wish to receive – individual dataset updates, publication alerts, or subject-specific news.

The specific benefits of this resource include:

No more unwanted or irrelevant e-mail!
Since you choose the news you want to receive, you will no longer have to hunt
through bulk e-mail messages to see if they contain information pertaining to your
research interests.

It saves valuable time!
News from the PRI Library and Data Archive offers one-stop-shopping for news – You know the news as soon as we know it – as a subscriber, you receive alerts the same day we post them. If you aren’t a subscriber, you can search the News site by keyword or browse by information category.

To subscribe, browse through the information categories found to your right. Our news are organized by the parent categories: Data Archive, Library, and Subject Resources. When you have chosen one or more categories of interest, find the “Subscribe” heading (it is right above the category listing) and click on the “Subscribe to…” link pertaining to the categories you found (e.g. click on Subscribe to Data Archive News if you are interested in Data Archive Updates or the ECLS-B or News from Penn State’s ORP). On the subscribe page are some instructions on how you can sign up to receive news alerts.

If you require more detailed instructions, or have questions or comments, please contact the PRI Information Core at library@pop.psu.edu

The PRI Library and Data Archive Catalog is temporarily unavailable due to server maintenance. If you need assistance locating an item in our collections, please contact us at library@pop.psu.edu.

This outage includes only the catalog, used to locate books, bound journals, codebooks, and data on CD-ROM. It does not include SodaPop.

We will post an update when the catalog is available again.

The Population Research Institute’s Simple Online Data Archive for Population Studies (SodaPop) has moved to its new Web site at http://sodapop.pop.psu.edu.

You will find that the layout of information on the site has changed; the primary difference being tabbed navigation for general information (home, collections, and explore) and for each dataset page (description, download, and search functions).

The basic functionality of the system—variable searching, online documentation, and data download—is up and running. Over the coming months, the SodaPop team will be actively working on adding enhanced features to the site: help information, technical notes for specific datasets, and special access information for PRI users.

The new site also includes a comprehensive list of data from the PRI Data Archive available to PRI affiliates.

We encourage you to explore the new site and let us know what you think. Should you discover any bugs, have questions, or wish to offer feedback on the site’s design, please contact the SodaPop team.