Having put together the speakers for Saturday's Radstats AGM/Conference in
Bradford, it may be helpful if I say a bit more.  Should have done this
sooner, but I made the mistake of being one of the presenters, and a lot of
work has had to go into making sure my project has something to show.

What follows is about the main theme, "Democratising access to statistics",
and there are of course other things going on:  we kick off with a
discussion of the 2001 census led by Ludi Simpson;  one of the parallel
workshops will be on how RadStats should respond to the threat of war;  and
the day ends with the AGM.

A major reason for choosing the theme of "democratising access" is that
this is a topic where Radstats members are making a practical contribution:

=> A major reason for meeting in Bradford was to enable the Bradford
Community Statistics Project, based at the Resource Centre, to play a major
role.  This includes making data available on the web in easily
understandable form, but it has also involved field work in the local
community, and I am hoping this will be a major focus for the workshop
session they will be leading. See http://www.communitystats.org.uk

=> My own project has National Lottery funding to put historical statistics
on the web.  What we will be demonstrating on Saturday is a web site that
contains unemployment data for 1931 to 2001, infant mortality 1911-1951 and
social class 1841-2001, for every CURRENT local authority in England and
Wales (Scotland in coming), with no access controls at all.  Users can just
type in a postcode and be taken to data for the relevant authority, and it
is presented as maps and graphs ... and one thing the system makes
graphically clear is the enduring geography of inequality.  Incidentally,
to get the lottery money we had to include a "values statement".  Ours
included "our aim is to make information about society and individual
communities accessible to all:  we believe that meaningful statistics can
provide an insight into social change which can help the least powerful
groups in society realise their full potential" -- which I "borrowed" from
the discussion on this list about RadStats mission.  Our own web site goes
live in April, but Ian Turton and I will be previewing it in Bradford.

The other two projects involved in presentations are more "official" and
perhaps less "radical", but also fit the general theme very well:

=> The CensusAtSchool project has ONS support but is run out of Nottingham
Trent University (see http://www.censusatschool.ntu.ac.uk).  Again, it is
about getting "ordinary people" involved with social statistics, and forms
the basis of the second workshop. Dorren Connor, the project's coordinator,
will be presenting and leading the workshop.

=> Neighbourhood Statistics is an ONS project/web site, yet again designed
to provide people with relevant information in understandable form (see
http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk).  2001 census results are now
live on their site.  Becky Wead from ONS is doing the presentation.

While RadStats' main activity is criticising the forces of darkness, we
occasionally have something to celebrate.  The combination of the web and a
shift in government policy away from simply trying to make money out of
selling data means that far more data is easily available than was the case
10 years ago -- and given that computers are going into public libraries on
a large scale, you really do not need any money to access them.  Radstats
members are playing a significant role in taking advantage of this.  This
said, there are clearly large issues about helping people find what they
want, and presenting information in a comprehensible form.

Hoping to see people there -- a fair number of bookings have already come
in, but you can pay on the door.  The programme is at:

        http://www.radstats.org.uk/conference.htm

Best wishes,

Humphrey Southall
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    ====================================
Humphrey Southall
Reader in Geography/Director,
Great Britain Historical GIS Project
Department of Geography, University of Portsmouth

Buckingham Building, Lion Terrace, Portsmouth PO1 3HE

GIS Project Office: (023) 9284 2500
Home office:  (020) 8853 0396
Mobile:  (07736) 727928

Web site:  http://www.gbhgis.org

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