NATIONAL CENTER FOR EDUCATION STATISTICS Technical Report August 1998 Coverage Evaluation of the 1994 Federal Libraries and Information Centers Survey U. S. Department of Education Office of Educational Research and Improvement NCES 98-269 NATIONAL CENTER FOR EDUCATION STATISTICS Technical Report August 1998 Coverage Evaluation of the 1994 Federal Libraries and Information Centers Survey John Curry U.S. Bureau of the Census Carrol Kindel, Project Officer National Center for Education Statistics U. S. Department of Education Office of Educational Research and Improvement NCES 98-269 U.S. Department of Education Richard W. Riley Secretary Office of Educational Research and Improvement C. Kent McGuire Assistant Secretary National Center for Education Statistics Pascal D. Forgione, Jr. Commissioner The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is the primary federal entity for collecting, analyzing, and reporting data related to education in the United States and other nations. It fulfills a congressional mandate to collect, collate, analyze, and report full and complete statistics on the condition of education in the United States; conduct and publish reports and specialized analyses of the meaning and significance of such statistics; assist state and local education agencies in improving their statistical systems; and review and report on education activities in foreign countries. NCES activities are designed to address high priority education data needs; provide consistent, reliable, complete, and accurate indicators of education status and trends; and report timely, useful, and high quality data to the U.S. Department of Education, the Congress, the states, other education policymakers, practitioners, data users, and the general public. We strive to make our products available in a variety of formats and in language that is appropriate to a variety of audiences. You, as our customer, are the best judge of our success in communicating information effectively. If you have any comments or suggestions about this or any other NCES product or report, we would like to hear from you. Please direct your comments to: National Center for Education Statistics Office of Educational Research and Improvement U.S. Department of Education 555 New Jersey Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20208–5651 August 1998 The NCES World Wide Web Home Page address is http://nces.ed.gov Suggested Citation U.S. Department of Education. National Center for Education Statistics. Coverage Evaluation of the 1994 Federal Libraries and Information Centers Survey, NCES 98- 269, by John Curry. Project Officer: Carrol Kindel. Washington DC: 1998. Contact: Jeff Williams (202) 219-1362 FOREWORD This report was prepared for the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) by the Governments Division of the U.S. Bureau of the Census, John Curry, principal author. It is intended to address issues of interest and concern to the NCES and education policymakers and researchers. The report contains the results of an evaluation of coverage issues regarding the 1994 Federal Libraries and Information Centers Survey. Its objectives are to determine the accuracy and completeness of the final survey frame and to analyze the criteria used to classify federal library facilities as in-scope and out-of-scope. This report also points out areas for potential improvement in data collection and processing. iv ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THIS REPORT The following abbreviations are used frequently throughout this report: BIA—Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S. Department of the Interior. DOD—U.S. Department of Defense. FEDLINK—Federal Library and Information Network—Library of Congress program that provides federal libraries, information centers, and other federal activities with information retrieval and library support services. FLICS—Federal Libraries and Information Centers Survey—the focus of this evaluation. LMC—Library Media Center Survey—the sample surveys of public, private, and Indian schools for library media centers. NCES—National Center for Education Statistics—the federal agency, within the Department of Education, that is responsible for collecting library statistics on a national scale. NEC—not elsewhere classified. No.—number of. SASS—Schools and Staffing Survey—the sample surveys of public (school and local education agency level), private, and Indian schools for staffing, programs, and policies. z—entry would amount to less than half the unit of measurement shown. v TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................. 1 Section 1.0 Survey Background and Purpose of Evaluation .................................. 1 Section 1.1 Principal Findings ......................................................... 2 Section 1.2 Recommendations ......................................................... 3 CHAPTER 2. COMPARISONS OF IN-SCOPE AND OUT-OF-SCOPE FEDERAL LIBRARY FACILITIES ............................................................. 5 Section 2.0 Sources Used to Construct Survey Universe ..................................... 5 Section 2.1 Evaluation of Out-of-Scope Group ............................................ 6 Section 2.2 Supplemental Tabulations ................................................... 6 CHAPTER 3. TESTING ASSUMPTIONS FOR EXCLUSION OF SELECTED FEDERAL SCHOOL LIBRARIES ............................................................ 17 Section 3.0 Exclusion of Bureau of Indian Affairs School Libraries ........................... 17 Section 3.1 Exclusion of Department of Defense School Libraries ............................ 17 CHAPTER 4. COMPARING THE UNIVERSE TO SECONDARY DIRECTORIES OF FEDERAL LIBRARIES ............................................................ 21 Section 4.0 Libraries Found in Secondary Directories, But Not Matched to Survey Universe ....... 21 Section 4.1 Libraries Found in Secondary Directories That Were on the Universe File, But Not On the Final Survey Frame ............................................. 22 Section 4.2 Inconsistent Classification of Information Clearinghouses ......................... 22 CHAPTER 5. EXPLORING THE DEFINITION OF “FEDERAL” ................................. 29 Section 5.0 Defining What is Considered a Member of the Federal Universe ................... 29 Section 5.1 Limitations of Basing Definition of Federal Universe on Level of Funding ............ 30 Section 5.2 Reliance on Self-Classification and Lack of Corroborating Information .............. 31 CHAPTER 6. METHODOLOGY ........................................................... 33 Section 6.0 Conversion of FLICS’ dBase Files into SAS Data Files ........................... 33 Section 6.1 Comparisons of In-Scope and Out-of-Scope Federal Library Facilities ............... 33 Section 6.2 Testing Assumptions for Exclusion of Selected Federal School Libraries ............. 34 Section 6.3 Comparing FLICS Universe to Secondary Directories of Federal Libraries ........... 34 Section 6.4 Exploring FLICS’ Definition of “Federal” ..................................... 35 APPENDIX A. Listing of Purposely-Excluded Federal Library Facilities .............................. 37 APPENDIX B. Federal Libraries Found in Secondary Directories, But Not Matched to FLICS Universe ..... 57 APPENDIX C. Federal Library Facilities Found in Secondary Directories That Are on the Universe File, But Not the Final Survey Frame ............................................. 73 APPENDIX D. Major Sources Used to Construct FLICS Universe File ............................... 81 APPENDIX E. Secondary Directories Used for Comparison to FLICS Universe ........................ 83 APPENDIX F. Census Bureau Listing of Dependent Agencies and Institutions for the Federal Government ... 85 SURVEY FORM FLIC ...................................................................... 97 vi LIST OF TABLES Table 2-1. Number of Federal Library Facilities by Source ...................................... 8 Table 2-2. Number of Federal Library Facilities by Activity Code ................................ 9 Table 2-3. Number of Federal Library Facilities by Combined “Who Should Respond” Codes and Activity Code ........................................................... 10 Table 2-4. Federal Library Facilities With In-Scope Activity Code That Are Not in the Final Survey File ............................................................. 11 Table 2-5. Number of Federal Library Facilities by Library Type ................................ 12 Table 2-6. Number of Federal Library Facilities by Department ................................. 13 Table 2-7. Number of Federal Library Facilities by Size of Staff ................................. 14 Table 2-8. Number of Federal Library Facilities by Size of Collection ............................ 15 Table 3-1. Federal Indian School Libraries in Federal Universe File, But Not Other NCES Library Surveys .......................................................... 18 Table 3-2. Federal Indian School Libraries in Federal Universe File Found in Library Files Other Than the Indian School Library File ..................................... 19 Table 4-1. Number of Federal Libraries by Activity Code and Organization and Structure Status ....... 24 Table 4-2. Number of Federal Library Facilities in Secondary Directories That Are on the Universe File, But Not the Final Survey Frame, by Secondary Source Code and Activity Code ... 25 Table 4-3. Number of Federal Library Facilities Found in Secondary Directories That Are on the Universe File, But Not the Final Survey