More than 4,000 extra free publications on ABS web site from today (Media Release)

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MEDIA RELEASE

November 23, 2006
110/2006

More than 4,000 extra free publications on ABS web site from today

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) is adding more than 4,000 extra publications to its collection of free online publications today.

The set of mainly historical material includes all ABS publications, national and regional titles, released during 1994, 1995, 1996 and 1997 including the Australia and State Year Books. With the addition of this set, the ABS web site will hold all ABS publications released from 1994 to the present day.

This latest addition represents a 50% increase in the number of publications that people can view and download for free from the ABS web site at www.abs.gov.au.

Head of the ABS Information Services, Kerrie Duff, said the addition of the material was a large step forward in the ABS mission to encourage informed decision making in the community by making statistics available to the public.

"It's a massive amount of new information that is available online," Ms Duff said. "It represents four years of the work of the ABS and it will provide a rich resource for students of Australian social and economic history."

"In a real sense, with this move, the digital age has captured some of the pre-digital past."

Some of these publications have been converted from older scanned images to pdf files. These historical publications will appear with all current publication pdf files and are treated as past issues when accessing them on the web site.

The ABS web site is one of the most viewed government web sites with 78 million pages viewed in 2005-06. As of 1 January 2006, everything available on the ABS web site is free to view and download.

Loading of the publications to the ABS web site will begin at 11.30am (AEDT) today. Due to the volume of material, loading may take several hours. You can then view and download this material from 'Statistics by Release Date' on the ABS web site <www.abs.gov.au>.

NOTE: As a result of these being scanned images, the publications do not necessarily have the same appearance and functionality as later releases.