The Twenty-Sixth (26) Annual Conference of the International Association for Social Science Information Services and Technology (IASSIST) will be held on the campus of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois on June 7-10, 2000. This year's conference Data in the Digital Library: Charting the Future of Social, Spatial and Government Data emphasizes the strengthening relationships between archives and libraries in managing, preserving and providing access to "digital collections".

IASSIST conferences bring together data professionals, data producers, and data analysts from around the world who are engaged in the creation, acquisition, processing, maintenance, distribution, preservation, and use of numeric social science data for research and instruction.

CONFERENCE THEMES

Over the last four decades, data archives and data libraries have managed, preserved and provided access to "digital collections" of numeric data. We are at a historic crossroad in the development of standards, technological capability, and innovation in data delivery. This year's theme emphasizes this rich past and looks at innovation in data services operations and current digital library and archive initiatives that will shape access and services in the 21st century. The conference is an opportunity to explore service models for data, government information and mapping.

Our conference sessions explore issues and soluations in the following areas:

Innovative Services and the Effective Use of Technology

• Administering and providing data services in an academic library
• Innovations in data delivery and access methods
• Implications of Web-based data distribution and access models
• Integrating GIS and spatial data in the digital library
• Bringing numeric and spatial data into the classroom
• Expanding and preserving multi-media resources
• Developing support services for qualitative analysis
• Promoting statistical literacy
• Data warehousing

Promoting Preservation and Standards

• Preserving our (numeric) digital heritage
• Archival challenges of the digital government
• Promoting metadata and documentation standards for data
• Exploring XML, RDF, GILS, FGDC, and Dublin Core applications for data
• Data quality and authentication

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

For the most current information check the IASSIST 2000 conference website at: http://www.src.uchicago.edu/datalib/ia2000 or contact:

Fay Booker, Data Librarian
Social Science Research Computing, University of Chicago
booke@src.uchicago.edu
(773) 834-0150/FAX (773) 702-2101

Diane Geraci, Data Services Librarian
University Libraries, Binghamton University
dgeraci@binghamton.edu
(607) 777-2181/FAX (607) 777-4848

Ann Janda, Data Consultant
University Library, Northwestern University
a-janda@nwu.edu
(847) 491-4090/FAX (847)491-8306