archival tapes at LBNL

inactive tapes from Federal Records Center
active and high-use tapes from LBL tape library
contents of (all) LBL tapes

There are about 3500 archival data tapes at LBNL with historical Census and socioeconomic data. Many of the older tapes contain historical data no longer available elsewhere.

The surviving paper documentation about tape contents is stored in Deane Merrill's office at LBNL. The information is incomplete but organized. Further information may be available from the original tape owners: Deane Merrill, Fred Gey, Esther Schroeder, Bob Healey, and Linda Wong.

The 3500 tapes include:

1. 159*8=1272 inactive tapes from the Federal Records Center (FRC). These include 1960 Census data, original 1970 Census Summary Tape Files, Economic and Agricultural Censuses of the 1970's, Current Population Surveys of the 1970's, etc. These are stored at Nor-Cal, in boxes dm001-dm159.
2. 117*17=1989 active tapes from the LBL tape library. These include 1970 Census data in SEEDIS format, original 1980 Census Summary Tape Files, all installed SEEDIS databases (about 10 GB), mortality and cancer incidence data, etc. These are stored at Nor-Cal, in boxes 558043-558159.
3. 12*17=204 high-use tapes from the LBL computer center. These are the 10GB of data files installed in SEEDIS. These are stored at UC-DATA, in boxes 558160-558171. Duplicate copies of these 204 tapes are included among the 1989 active tapes at Nor-Cal.

In 1994 and 1995, about 900 of the 2200 active and high-use tapes were temporarily copied to the LBNL Mass Storage System (MSS). The 900 tapes copied to MSS include all of the high-use tapes, namely the 10 GB of data installed in SEEDIS, and the 1970 Census data in SEEDIS format.

The SEEDIS data and the 1970 Census data were stored on duplicate tapes. Except where tape errors occurred, both copies were copied to MSS. The data on MSS were in the form of tar archive files (tarfiles). Excluding duplicates and defective files, there were 597 tarfiles on MSS.

The following tasks were completed in 1996-7:

1. the 597 non-duplicate tarfiles in MSS were copied to seedis.census.gov and were removed from MSS;
2. the SEEDIS system was installed in a VAX computer at the Census Bureau;
3. Most of the SEEDIS databases were interfaced to the SEEDIS. All the data are present on disk at seedis.census.gov, but installation in SEEDIS is incomplete.
4. the 159*8=1272 inactive tapes were archived at Nor-Cal;
5. the 117*17=1989 active tapes were archived at Nor-Cal;
6. the 12*17=204 high-use tapes were archived at UCDATA.

back to U.S. Census Data at LBNL

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