Challenges and Opportunities for Statistics and Statistical Education: Looking Back,Looking Forward

The 175th anniversary of the ASA provides an opportunity to look back into the past and peer into the future. What led our forebears to found the association? What commonalities do we still see? What insights might we glean from their experiences and observations? I will use the anniversary as a chance to reflect on where we are now and where we are headed in terms of statistical education amidst the growth of data science. Statistics is the science of learning from data. By fostering more multivariable thinking, building data-related skills, and developing simulation-based problem solving, we can help to ensure that statisticians are fully engaged in data science and the analysis of the abundance of data now available to us.     

Victims,villains or victors: The impact of serials automation on a library organization

Perceptive readers may have observed, and regretted, the absence of any discussion of card catalog closings, abolition of serials departments, changes in clerical procedures, or minutiae or any of the other concrete details of library operations so dear to the hearts of us all. The craft of serials management has scarcely been mentioned. Those topics discussed — the nature of organizational change, influencing change, communication, planning for the optimum impact of automation and for flexibility throughout the development and implementation phases — are concepts difficult to introduce into the pragmatic world of libraries. It is difficult to identify causes, to predict effects, and to deal with them. These are, however, critical elements in the success or failure of a serials automation project and a library administration which addresses these issues will manage the changes brought about by automation rather than passively submitting to its consequences.     

The library web: Case studies in web site creation and implementation

Abstract

In May 2003, the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) held a strategy meeting to look at issues surrounding standardization of metasearch systems. The goal of the workshop was to examine the state of the art in metasearch and ways of building consensus to move forward. This article describes the work that has been going on with NISO metasearch activity since that initial meeting.     

Statistics development: statistical methods meeting the user’s needs

Statistical methods have the potential of being effectively used by industrial practitioners if they satisfied two criteria: functionality and usability. Statistical methods are usually the product of statistical research activities of universities and other research organizations. Some already satisfy these criteria; however, many do not. The effect is that potentially relevant methods are not used in practice as often as they could be. In this paper we will present an approach regarding ‘statistics development,’ in which the end-user is given a central position, so that the results from statistical research aim to meet the needs and requirements of the practitioner. Examples of known and new methods will be presented, and we will discuss issues such as education in statistics, the link with statistical consultancy and publication of methods through various channels.     

Looking for max-semistability: A new test for the extreme value condition

To test the extreme value condition, Cramér-Von Mises type tests were recently proposed by Drees et al. (2006) and Dietrich et al. (2002). Hüsler and Li (2006) presented a simulation study on the behavior of these tests and verified that they are not robust for models in the domain of attraction of a max-semistable distribution function. In this work we develop a test statistic that distinguishes quite well distribution functions which belong to a max-stable domain of attraction from those in a max-semistable one. The limit law is deduced and the results from a numerical simulation study are presented.     

SR visits: bringing electronic access to the census bureau library

Abstract

The United States Census Bureau Library, acting on a study commissioned in 2002, has undertaken to improve electronic access for their patrons. The library provides e-journal and database access. The staff relies on usage statistics from these resources to sharpen the focus of the collection. Through an aggressive outreach program Census Bureau employees learn about these new products and services. Future plans include adding more e-journals, an open OPAC, and a new library building.     

SR visits: bringing electronic access to the census bureau library

The United States Census Bureau Library, acting on a study commissioned in 2002, has undertaken to improve electronic access for their patrons. The library provides e-journal and database access. The staff relies on usage statistics from these resources to sharpen the focus of the collection. Through an aggressive outreach program Census Bureau employees learn about these new products and services. Future plans include adding more e-journals, an open OPAC, and a new library building.     

The cost of not knowing the radius

Robust Statistics considers the quality of statistical decisions in the presence of deviations from the ideal model, where deviations are modelled by neighborhoods of a certain size about the ideal model. We introduce a new concept of optimality (radius-minimaxity) if this size or radius is not precisely known: for this notion, we determine the increase of the maximum risk over the minimax risk in the case that the optimally robust estimator for the false neighborhood radius is used. The maximum increase of the relative risk is minimized in the case that the radius is known only to belong to some interval [r _l ,r _u ]. We pursue this minmax approach for a number of ideal models and a variety of neighborhoods. Also, the effect of increasing parameter dimension is studied for these models. The minimax increase of relative risk in case the radius is completely unknown, compared with that of the most robust procedure, is 18.1% versus 57.1% and 50.5% versus 172.1% for one-dimensional location and scale, respectively, and less than 1/3 in other typical contamination models. In most models considered so far, the radius needs to be specified only up to a factor , in order to keep the increase of relative risk below 12.5%, provided that the radius–minimax robust estimator is employed. The least favorable radii leading to the radius–minimax estimators turn out small: 5–6% contamination, at sample size 100.      

Things Are Looking Up: Using Cloud-Based Technology Tools in Collection Management Workflows

Abstract

Between 2018 and 2019, two librarians at the College of Charleston Libraries incorporated cloud-based technologies into their collection management workflows. The following paper was derived from a presentation they prepared for the 2020 North Carolina Serials Conference, which was to be held on March 27, 2020 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina but was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper highlights which cloud technologies they use and provides an overview of the literature that has been published on project management and cloud-based technologies in libraries. It includes an explanation of how they use each tool, and provides examples for setting up each tool in different scenarios so that other collection management librarians may implement them into their own routines. The paper ends with an exploration of the advantages and disadvantages of integrating these tools into collection management workflows. Although the librarians had not prepared to discuss the role these technologies may play when working remotely, they have both found them invaluable during this unprecedented time when many librarians are working from home.