National Housing Day

National Housing Day in Canada is on November 22, 2010. An initiative of Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the day is meant to recognize people and organizations who advance affordable housing in Canadian communities. CMHC's website features "the latest resources and special events all over Canada to recognize the advances made in affordable housing."

From November 15-26, Oakville Public Library is hosting a display for National Housing Day. Halton Region's Social & Community Services department has created posters promoting "Voices for Housing Choices" to "help raise awareness and understanding about the need for safe, adequate, local affordable housing solutions." Halton Region's website features a housing page to provide information about affordable housing to residents.

OPL's collection includes the following housing resources:

• Halton Region Joint Municipal Housing Statement, March 2010


• 2009 State of Housing Report, Halton Region, 2009


• Best Planning Estimates of Population, Occupied Dwelling Units and Employment, 2007-2021, Halton Region, April 2007


• A Comprehensive Housing Strategy for Halton Region, 2006-2015, Halton Region, 2006


• Social Profile of Halton Region 2009, Community Development Halton, 2009


• Ontario's Long-Term Affordable Housing Strategy Consultation, Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, 2009


• Canadian Housing Statistics 2009, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, August 2010.

E-Stat for students and teachers

E-Stat, Statistics Canada's online learning tool for the educational community, is available on OPL's website. E-Stat allows you to create tables, graphs and maps using Stats Can's census and socioeconomic data.

There are two main sources of information that may be searched on E-Stat: the CANSIM database and the Census. CANSIM is Stats Can's online database of socioeconomic statistics, offering data on labour manufacturing, agriculture, health, investment, and much more. "CANSIM lets you track trends in virtually every aspect of Canadian life... As of the end of June 2010, over 3,000 tables accounting for over 42 million time series have been updated."

The census is a survey of population done at regular intervals. It is a snapshot of data at one point in time, unlike CANSIM which provides data at regular time intervals.

"CANSIM data in E-Stat are updated once a year during the summer and are free to registered educational institutions. The commercial CANSIM database is updated daily, and there is a charge per series." Retrieving commercial CANSIM data can be quite costly, so E-Stat is a great alternative when you don't have to have up-to-the minute data. For example, if you search for consumer price index data in December, you would only retrieve data up to May if the annual CANSIM update occurred in June. You would need to use other sources to find data for June to December.

Because E-Stat is designed for students and teachers, it is meant to be easy to use, but also flexible to allow data to be manipulated and then put in tables, charts or maps. Each page of the website contains a "Help using this page" feature which clearly describes how to proceed.

Two guides on E-Stat are particularly useful for beginners. Finding and Using Statistics is "especially for users needing a step-by-step review on how to find, read and use data, with quick tips on locating information on the Statistics Canada website." The CANSIM User Guide for E-Stat "walks you through each CANSIM screen and option."

Quoted material taken from www.statcan.gc.ca/estat/estat-eng.htm.