2017/11/25 by Metz, Rainer, Berg, Alexander
#Archiv #Daten #Datenbank #EDV #Geschichtswissenschaft #Statistik #archives #data #data bank #electronic data processing #science of history #statistics
paper · doi:10.12759/hsr.29.2004.2.160-171
The availability of historical statistical data ofhigh quality in machine-readable form for Germany is in alamentable condition. The existing data are scattered overnumerous publications. They are only partially available inmachine-readable form and only a small part of them is storedin public archives. But not only that most of the existingmachine-readable data are not archived, for Germany we alsomiss a statistical handbook for the history of economy,society and state - in printed as well as in electronic form -which presents the relevant figures in a systematic way. Theonline data bank HISTAT tries to offer the historical statisticaldata to the scientific community. This data bankdoes not only present the numerous figures and time series,it also documents the various annotations which help to understandthe figures and the sources that have been the basisfor creating the figures by the researcher, and, last but notleast, it contains the literature which was consulted whenediting the data. The final goal of this data bank is to presentthe data in a systematic way. Like the Statistical Yearbook,the online data bank must offer the categorized timeseries for different regions and branches, together with allinformation that are necessary to understand and evaluatehistorically the meaning of these statistical data.