The information in the NESE DB covers an array of topics from a variety of government agencies. The topics include: U.S. economic and budget outlook, Bureau of the Census reports, business cycle indicators, Bureau of Justice statistics, crime and felony sentences, profiles of jail inmates, Nation Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather conditions, capital stocks, education statistics, Annual Energy Review, Federal Reserve Bank information, health statistics, U.S. Industrial Outlook, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and much more.
CIESIN (the Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network) is one of nine Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) centers funded by NASA. Located in Saginaw, Michigan, CIESIN provides access to data from the environmental and social sciences so that researchers can evaluate and understand the human dimensions of global environmental change, including the way in which population impacts the environment and the way in which the environment affects human population.
Sources:
Producer: the Office of Business Analysis, the Economics and Statistics Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce.
Contributors: Bureau of Economic Analysis, International Trade Administration, Council of Economic Advisers, Bureau of Economic Analysis, National Climatic Data Center, Congressional Budget Office, Bureau of the Census, U.S. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Office of Management and Budget, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, National Center for Health Statistics, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, National Center for Education Statistics, and Energy Information Administration.
Data Retrieval:
The NESE DB files are shipped on one CD-ROM. The CD-ROM contains search and retrieval programs called NESE BROWSE that you can use to access information within the data bank (e.g., search only for items that contain a specific word(s) in a title). The BROWSE programs are designed for users with basic computer skills and requires no specific knowledge of federal data. The BROWSE programs allow you to choose from five search strategies for retrieving data, they are: source, topic, title, program and item. The one you choose may depend on your familiarity with federal statistics.
The BROWSE programs also make use of external files. These are standard DOS files that reside outside the main NESE DB and contain operational programs you can use to access data within the NESE DB. For example, if you are interested in viewing tables found in an economic report, you may prefer to read directly all the Lotus 123 worksheets containing the tables rather than relying on the BROWSE program to search for the tables.
Set Up:
SETUP.EXE is also included on the CD-ROM. This is an optional program that can be used to customize screen color, file paths, and other settings.
Documentation:
Documentation for the NESE DB is available and updated on each CD-ROM and includes descriptions of current and future data series, listing of source agencies, instructions for using the data base within a DOS batch file, an introduction to the NESE DB and instructions for using BROWSE, guidelines for changing technical settings and more.
The documentation is located in a directory titled NESEINFO (located in the root directory of the CD-ROM) and is in three basic parts:
There are other documents that describe the menu system, special software features and setup instructions.
All files contained in the NESEINFO directory are ASCII text files. You can view and print these files using any text editor or word processing program. All files reside in the \NESEINFO subdirectory.
CIESIN User Services 2250 Pierce Road University Center, MI 48710 phone (517) 797-2727 fax (517) 797-2622 email ciesin.info@ciesin.org