Institute wins preservation grant

The nation's first university-based multidisciplinary social science research institute recently reaffirmed its commitment to research and knowledge in the field.

UNC's Howard Odum Institute has received a grant from the Library of Congress to undertake large-scale efforts to acquire and preserve digital social science data from opinion polls, voting records, large-scale surveys and other studies.

The award was granted to the Odum Institute and five other institutions, including the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research.

The total award, including cost-sharing, is $4.1 million, and Odum's share is more than $800,000.

The project seeks to reduce the danger of losing historically significant data by properly preserving any endangered research content.

The preservation efforts include cataloging the archived data and developing ways to share it, said Peter Leousis, assistant director of business development and administration at the Odum Institute.

"Hopefully, that means data that would have been lost will be available to people," he said.

Ken Bollen, director of the institute, said such data suffers from the unconcerned attitude people have regarding digital content as opposed to printed material.

"We are not quite at the point to value the digital information," he said.

All institutions partake in preservation efforts as part of a joint project through the project at the University of Michigan and individually focus on particular areas.

"Once we have completed the project, we will have a set of studies of influential nature that weren't available, (and) any student, any faculty will have access to this," Bollen said.

The Odum Institute, which is the country's third-largest archive of computer-readable social science data, will achieve its goal in three primary ways. As a national deposit of state polls, it will enhance its collection of these surveys and update Harris Poll data, said archivist David Sheaves.

The institute also will collect data from private, nonacademic research firms like the Research Triangle Institute International.

Bollen said he envisions a proactive and engaged use of the archived data in classrooms for the purpose of analysis of historic trends with those of the present day.

"It also benefits as a goodwill sort of thing by providing information to those outside of UNC," Sheaves said.

Other institutions involved with the project include are the ISPCR at the University of Michigan, the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at the University of Connecticut, the Henry A. Murray Research Center at Harvard's Radcliffe Institute, the National Archives and Records Administration and the Harvard-MIT Data Center.

Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.