The CD-ROM as an innovative medium of disseminating official North Rhine-Westphalian statistics

Abstract

255 While the results of the numerous censuses have traditionally been published and recorded in the statistical database of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) now all interested parties active in the area of politics, administration, commerce, research, societies and institutions, and all citizens have been able to obtain comprehensive data on a novel medium, the CD Statistik. This is a CD-ROM which contains data and information from the official statistical records of North Rhine-Westphalia. 1. Preliminary remarks The need for reliable information on population and economy, culture and soci­ ety has considerably grown in the past decades. Official statistics has held a promi­ nent position among the suppliers of information for a long time now. More thim 200 primary and secondary statistical surveys are carried out using comprehensive question schemes on federal and federal state legal authority. The national census of 25 May 1987 with its various possibilities for evaluating contents and regions led to the production of substantial quantities of data which the user of official statistical data can hardly cope with in an efficient working system if he relies on traditional methods. As the user has been benefitting from advanced technologies in the analysis and interpretation of data, whereby a clear break away from the mainframe and a trend towards decentralized EDP utilization with the aid of PCs . or workstations can be observed, it became necessary for official statistics to react to these changes and to find new methods of distributing its data. The technologi­ cal developments with the CD-ROM have provided a new, efficient medium for distributing comprehensive databases just in time: The enormous memory capacity of 660 MB, the exceptional data security, linkage with the' PC and excellent retrieval facilities provided by the software industry have allowed the CD-ROM to become an innovative medium in distributing data and information (Schwerhoff and Schiiler, 1988; Pricking, 1989; Menssen, 1990). . , The Administrative Office for Data Processing and Statistics in North Rhine