EURODATA - Statistics Library

The statistics library contains supranational and international, national and subnational statistics. It chiefly collects publications from official (statistical offices and ministries) and semi-official ('Labour Market Statistics' published by the Bundesanstalt für Arbeit) sources. The collections of statistics from para-official institutions are limited to statistics from Social Security Offices. Private statistics are limited to those produced by central intermediary organizations such as trade unions and churches.

The collection of statistical publications includes the following categories: statistical yearbooks, statistical bulletins, statistical series, censuses and nomenclatures and systematics.

• Statistical Yearbooks are the main source of information and have generally been collected from the beginning of their publication in the 19th century up to the presence, either as microforms or as printed publications.
• (Monthly) Statistical Bulletins provide, first of all, recent information and therefore contain in general monthly data for several years backwards. Since these publications become outdated after a relatively short time, only the latest volumes are held in the library; back copies are not aquired.
• Statistical series deal with specific subjects and are more detailed than Statistical Yearbooks and Bulletins and are hence an indispensable source for in-depth research. These publications appear very frequently; it is therefore not possible to provide a complete collection (apart from the fact that these publications are often out of print after a short time , i.e. earlier editions can no longer be acquired, and that only few titles have been microfilmed).
• As regards censuses, particularly population censuses, the archive's objective is to have a complete collection, with comprehensive microfilm collections being the basis. Censuses that have been conducted since the census years 1980/81 have been collected in printed form, those dating back as far as the 19th century as microfilms. Both the microfilm collection and the collection of printed publications are not comprehensive and are therefore being gradually built up.
• In the fields of social and economic statistics, the respective valid nomenclatures and systematics are provided.

The following graph provides a simplified overview of the existing holdings, differentiated by publication type.

Figure: Holdings or EURODATA's Statistics Library

On the supranational level statistics produced by the European Union play the most important role. Thanks to donations, a fairly complete collection of EU statistics from the 1960s onwards has been compiled. The collection of recent social statistics is complete, while in other statistical areas only summary publications such as yearbooks are held. However, complete collections of EU statistics are provided at all EU depository libraries.

International statistics comprise of central statistics from the UN (Statistical Office) and its specialised institutions (particularly ILO, but also UNESCO, WHO, IBRD, IMF) as well as OECD statistics and the Nordic Statistics (Nordic Council).

The archive holds the UN'S major statistical yearbooks (e.g. Statistical Yearbook, Demographic Yearbook, Yearbook of Labour Statistics) and bulletins. Part of the collection of ILO statistics goes back as far as the interwar period. Statistics produced jointly by the five Nordic countries are represented by the Yearbook of Nordic Statistics, statistical reports and technical reports.

On the national level statistics are collected for West and East European countries and, to a lesser extent, for the Russian Federation, the USA and Japan. National statistics make up the largest part of the statistics library. Older statistics are mainly provided in the form of microforms, statistics that have been published since the late 1980s mainly in printed form.

On the subnational level the collection consists of purely regional statistical publications which complete the regional tables provided in most national publications. This includes the following specific types:

• regional statistical handbooks or yearbooks published by the national statistical offices
• statistical handbooks or yearbooks dealing with cities or districts published by national statistical offices or municipality organizations
• publications issued by regional statistical offices.

The statistical publications are arranged alphabetically by country. The individual countries' publications are subdivided into yearbooks, bulletins, series, censuses and nomenclatures. A special shelf reference scheme has been developed for the very comprehensive category of series. It is used in cases where the national statistical offices have not developed their own classification systems. The archival holdings are indexed by means of a thesaurus used by both the MZES general library and EURODATA.

Last update: 28.10.2003