Revision History for the PLDF3 Dataset

12/18/07

In the process of testing the ASCII file of the data (pldf3ascii.txt) with the SAS dataset, I found two duplicates: the first was for ME0242 for 1991 for which there is a complete entry and a second that appears to be a stub entry, that is, it is incomplete. Also, ME0256 for 1991 but these duplicates appear both to be complete. The stub entry for ME0242 and one of the entries for ME0256 are deleted. The count of institutions in PLDF3 is now 164,872.

11/18/07

My colleague, Don McMorris, found the solution to a problem that I had noticed but not understood. The 1987 data on employees were completely out of range of all other such data. Embarassingly, he found it in the documentation for the 1987 data: the documentation make clear that the raw data for that year did not have an explicit decimal point. I missed that when I first read in the 1987 data so the number of employees in four categories were ten times the true values. That is fixed, now. There is more information on this correction in the discussion of the PLDF3 variables

11/16/07

The FY 2005 dataset has 9,201 observations. However, three outlying areas: Guam, The Northern Marianas, and the Virgin Islands did not report. These observations have been dropped in PLDF3, leaving this year with 9,198. There are 164,874 observations in PLDF3 now with 94 variables ever reported in the dataset—however, not all variables are reported for each year.

9/7/07

In reading Douglas Galbi's Audiovisual Materials in U.S Public Libraries' Collections, I noted that he reported he had trouble reading in the ASCII file of the PLDF3 data. He pointed out that the documentation of that file differed from the output program. He was right and I appreciate his reporting that problem.

At first I thought it was merely a documentation error but in checking, I found another kind of error that I had missed. In five cases, four of them dealing with staffing (MASTER, LIBRARIA, OTHPAID, and TOTSTAFF), the output program had not output numbers with explicit decimal points but, rather, had rounded the numbers. The fifth (PSUNDUP) is only reported from 1987-1989 in these data. This error is not reflected in the spreadsheets, only the ASCII file. The documentation and the ASCII file are updated today, September 7, 2007. This update is an iterim because we have been led to expect the FY 2005 data will be published by NCES in October.

I believe that, if anyone used this ASCII file to analyze staffing at US public libraries, the effect of this error would be greatest in the very smallest libraries. That is, if a library had .25 total staff, the ASCII file recorded 0. If it had 100.25, the file reported 100 so this rounding would appear to affect smaller libraries more than the larger ones.

Those interested in analysis of library data will find Mr. Galbi's other work of interest. See: Library and Library Use for a list of these articles on his Web page.

8/25/06

The Virgin Islands did not report in FY 2004 so it has been dropped from PLDF3.

The Northern Marianas did not report in 2001, 2002, nor 2004 and it was also dropped from PLDF3.

Guam did not report in 2002 nor 2004 so these observations were dropped from PLDF3.

The number of observations in PLDF3 is now 155,676.

Dropping these observations has affected the counts of observations for each year. There are now 9,207 observations in FY 2004 instead of 9,210.

8/22/06

The FY 2004 data had 9,210 observations. That number plus the revised number of observations of 146,472 means that PLDF3 currently has 155,682 observations. Breakdowns by state and year of these observations is available in a spreadsheet.

8/18/06

Price City Library, Price Utah (newkey = UT0017) had duplicate entries for 1991. They differed only in the name. One was Price City Library and the other was 'DAGGETT CO. BOOKMO' and this one was deleted.

The number of observations for PLDF3 through FY 2003 is now 146,472.

8/17/06

In adding the FY2004 NCES public library data to PLDF3, three duplicate entries were discovered:

1. In 1988 there were two entries in PLDF3 for (newkey) NH0237 (Acworth Silsby) that were identical so one was dropped. In the original 1988 data file, these data appeared in two different FSCSKEYs: NH0001 and NH0002. This duplication was missed before and one was dropped.
2. In 1990, there were two entries in PLDF3 for NH0230 (Milan Dummer). This duplication appears to have occurred because a stub entry was created in NH0229 that had basic information on address and so forth but no data. The full entry for that year was in NH0230. The NH0229 was dropped. The data for 1989 were also in NH0229. There are no data for this library in 1988.
3. A complicated duplicate was discovered for data from Indianola Public Library in Nebraska (NE0230). Its resolution is discussed in the Nebraska Schedule of Changes.

The changes were handled in code in programs late in the process and the code is shown for Nebraska and New Hampshire in the Schedule of Changes pages for each state.

There are now 146,473 observations in PLDF3 for FY2003.

7/26/05

The FY 2003 dataset had 9,214 observations. That, plus the 137,262 from 1987-2002 gives us the current 146,476.

8/13/04

Palau has entries with no data in 2001 and 2002. These have been dropped. The count of observations is now 137,262.

8/9/04

One library was dropped from the 2002 NCES data, IL8023. This change is discussed with changes from Illinois. The number of observations in the PLDF3 dataset is 137,264. This includes the 9,140 observations added in 2002 with the 128,124 from 1987-2001.

5/12/04

Minnesota did not report data in 2001 but NCES published records with information on the libraries. After the imputations were removed, these became dummy records and the 140 from 2001 were discarded from PDLF3. The number of observations is now at 128,124. No Minnesota libraries will have a span of 'A' because it seems that the data for this year are lost for Minnesota public libraries..

4/16/04

Indiana's zipcodes in 2001 were incorrect in the original publication of these data. NCES has updated the dataset and the various datasets here reflect the change.

2/17/04

There were duplicate records for the Nebraska towns of Alma (FSKSKEYs NE0006 and NE0258*), Fremont (NE0090 and NE0259*), Genoa (NE0094 and NE0260*) in 1988. In addition, Creighton (NE0062 and NE9014*) was duplicated in 2000. The asterisks indicate the observations that are deleted in PLDF3. More details on these four cases are found in the Nebraska Schedule of Changes.

There were two records for Walhalla, North Dakota in 1990, one in ND0086 and the other in ND0095. The record in ND0086 was mostly blank and appears to have been a stub record that was not filled in. ND0095 had data in it. ND0086 for 1990 was deleted in PLDF3. The number of observations is now 128,264.

2/10/04

In Kansas in 1991, there are 17 dummy records (KS0323 through KS0339). They are deleted in PLDF3 bringing the number of observations down to 128,269.

1/24/04

There are two sets of data for Elmira, New York for 1988. One has an FSCSKEY of NY0100 and the other NY0101. In comparing the two, it appears that the data in NY0100 are incomplete and appear to have been a mistake. For instance, in 1987 and 1989, there are four branch libraries while in the NY0100 data, there are 0. In fact, there are many 0s in this set of data. The years 1987, 1989-1990 have an FSCSKEY of NY0101 and the data behave reasonably year to year if the 1988 NY0101 data are used. The NY0100 data are deleted in PLDF3. In 1991, the FSCSKEY for this library was changed to NY0765 and its newkey for all years is now NY0765.

The count of observations is now 128,286.

11/24/03

The data for Wedsworth Memorial Library in Cascade Montana for 1991 was duplicated. the second copy has the LIBNAME of Liberty County Library and the ADDRESS of that library but all other items are otherwise identical to Wedsworth.

11/21/03

The data for Brownsville Free Public Library, Pennsyvania, for 1990 was duplicated and this duplication is continued through PLDF2. It is FSCSKEY PA0001.

December 27, 2007