This paper describes a new NSF infrastructure project to create and disseminate an integrated international census database composed of high-precision, high-density samples of individuals and households. Our project has two components. First, we propose to collect data that will support broad-based investigations into the most important scientific questions facing social and behavioral science. Second, we will create a web-based data dissemination system that will incorporate innovative capabilities for worldwide access to both metadata and microdata.

This proposal seeks funding for electronic dissemination and support of the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS). The IPUMS--the world's largest publicly available demographic database--is a coherent series of individual-level census data drawn from eleven census years between 1850 and 1990. The National Institutes of Health funded the creation of many of the component data files of the IPUMS. Funding for electronic dissemination and user support is essential if the IPUMS is to realize its potential as a vital multi-disciplinary resource. The development of the Internet and World Wide Web (WWW) promises to transform fundamentally the nature of electronic data dissemination. At the same time, the proliferation of fast personal computers and UNIX workstations is already revolutionizing data analysis. This proposal capitalizes on both of these developments by making the largest and most powerful population database readily available for analysis on desktop machines. The research plan can be broken into three tasks: 1. Development of an interactive Java-based extraction system for use on the WWW. Users will be able to fashion subsamples containing only those years, subpopulations, and variables that suit their research interests and computing power. They will also be able to construct new variables that capitalize on the hierarchical structure of the database. 2. Conversion of IPUMS documentation into hypertext format to facilitate navigation. The documentation will be integrated with the extraction system so that researchers can make informed choices in designing their subsamples. By using Adobe Acrobat format, the documentation will be downloadable onto virtually any computer platform while retaining its hypertext functions. 3. Ongoing support for users. Four general areas of need will be the focus: help for users of the extract system, data, and documentation; establishment of a Web site as a clearinghouse for researchers; correction and posting of any errors discovered in the IPUMS; and dissemination efforts to make the academic community aware of this resource

The integrated public use microdata series international project (IPUMSi) proposes to integrate census microdata samples of individuals for some twelve countries and disseminate the data to researchers via the internet. The IPUMSi project began in October 1999, with a five year grant from the National Science Foundation of the United States. Historical census microdata for Canada, Norway, Great Britain, and Argentina will be included in the project as well as those for the United States. Contemporary microdata for the United States will be integrated into the database with those for China, France, Great Britain, Hungary, Spain, Colombia, Brazil and Mexico. Negotiations are underway with statistical offices in a number of other countries, including, Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Nepal, Thailand, and Kenya. The project builds on a solid foundation of some sixty-five million cases containing more than one-hundred variables for a single country, the United States. The new database with as many as one dozen countries will contain something on the order of twice as many variables and four-times as many cases. The IPUMSi database will be larger, but will it be useful? As a reality check this paper compares labor force participation patterns of Mexican women from 1990 census against high-quality employment survey microdata, the Encuesta Nacional de Empleo Urbano. The first part summarizes the basic goals and procedures of the IPUMSi project. The second part is the reality check.

Suggests some possible uses of the 1860 and 1870 United States Censuses of Population samples and provides background information on the construction of the samples and their availability. Applications of the samples for historical research; Particular strengths of the 1860 and 1870 samples; Versions of the 1860 and 1870 samples.

The Historical Census Project at the University of Minnesota has recently added microdata samples for the 1860 and 1870 federal censuses to the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series, which is a database with information on about 1% of the US population from 1850 to 1990. These new samples enhance the usefulness of the existing 1850 and 1880 microdata samples and complete the continuous series of population information from 1850 to 1990.