Guide to CANSIM I

No longer updated after January 1, 2002

What is CANSIM?

CANSIM (Canadian Socio-economic Information Management System) is Statistics Canada's computerized database and retrieval service. At MUN, it is accessible via the Internet at the EPAS Computing Facility of the University of Toronto. It contains over 700,000 time series and is updated weekly. Subject areas include socio-economic and demographic data on Canada and some limited information on the United States. Retrospective coverage begins as far back as 1914, but most data start in the 1970's.

Who can use CANSIM at MUN?

Our license agreements with Statistics Canada and the University of Toronto allow access to current Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN) students, faculty and staff. Non-MUN users who wish to access CANSIM should contact Statistics Canada in Halifax at 1-800-263-1136.

How to access CANSIM

First, check instructions for remote access. Go to the MUN Libraries homepage. Click on Internet Resources, then on Canadian Statistical Sites, and finally, on CANSIM I.

Or you may type the URL which is: http://dc1.chass.utoronto.ca/cansim/

If the procedure above does not work, type the URL of a second CANSIM web server: http://datacentre2.chass.utoronto.ca/cansim

Scope of this guide

This guide has been prepared for users who have some familiarity with using Netscape and will identify and explain some of the links on the CANSIM webpage. Some knowledge of CANSIM structure and terminology is also required.

Searching tips

For a keyword search, click on CANSIM Catalogue Files from the search & retrieve menu. You will then see a screen containing a search form to be filled in and whose default settings can be changed.
- Click on the dropdown menu in the search limit box. You can change the default setting of 50 to 20, 100 or 500. So if you set the search limit to 20 and there are 35 hits, only the first 20 will be retrieved. If you want to be sure of getting all hits, set the limit higher. In general, the relevance of search results diminishes inversely to the number of hits retrieved. It does not help to retrieve, say, 400 matches since you would have to sift through all of them. Hence, it is suggested that you either stay with the default setting of 50 or reset it at 100.
- The Index Files box allows you to change the default setting of Matrix Catalogue to Main Index or Full Text Index. For an explanation of these three settings, see the explanation located at the top of the page. It is suggested that you change the setting to Full Text Index to avoid missing any relevant matches.
- Type your subject keyword(s) in the Search keyword or keywords bar and click on the Submit Search box.
If you already have a matrix number, select Access a CANSIM matrix by number from the search & retrieve menu. You can then type the matrix number, submit the search and click on the label of your choice.
Similarly, if you already have a label number, scroll down further and click on Retrieve a single CANSIM series by label. To display data as a graph instead of in tabular form, click on Plot a single CANSIM series by label.

Printing and downloading

To print, click on the Print icon in the menu bar at the top of the screen and click on OK.

To download:

Click on the File option at the top left of the screen.
Click on Save As.
From the Save in dropdown menu, select 3 1/2 Floppy (A:) to download to a disc in the A drive. (Ensure that the disc is already inserted in the A drive.) Select a file name. From the Save as type dropdown menu, select the desired format and click on Save.

August 5, 2008
Aspi Balsara