The MSU Library DataCenter is housed within the Government Documents Library. Its mission is to act as an information resource regarding data activities across the MSU campus. Consequently, the DataCenter staff will assist MSU Faculty, staff and students with the identification and retrieval of information available in electronic format either by direct action or by referral.

Data Set Identification: The primary service the staff of the DataCenter will provide is helping MSU Faculty, staff and students determine content and format of data files on campus and also those available off campus.

Data Set Acquisitions: The staff of the DataCenter will acquire data sets available from consortium memberships (e.g. ICPSR and Roper) or those already maintained on campus. Other data sets will be pursued contingent upon funding. Efforts will be made to maintain an archival copy of acquired data sets. Other units within the library that will be working closely with the DataCenter include the Map Library and the Business Library. The DataCenter will catalog paper Codebooks and make other electronic codebooks and data sets known through the library's online catalog or its Electronic Resources web pages.

Custom Data Set Use: The DataCenter staff will, if time, resources and licenses permit, provide the following custom services:

• Subsetting of large data sets
• Web-based interactivity of data sets--i.e.,simple statistical analysis over the web

Data Set Analysis: The staff of the DataCenter will not perform data analysis. There are a variety of units on the MSU campus available for statistical consulting, some for FEE and others are FREE.