United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Office of Policy, Planning
and Evaluation
Washington. DC 20460
January 1991
vxEPA
PC VERSION
Guide to Key National
Environmental Statistics in
the U.S. Government
Introduction to
the Guide on
Diskette
The accompanying computer diskette contains basic information on federal programs
that develop and distribute key environmental statistics. Programs described in the
Guide provide either time series or major baseline studies that directly reflect
changing conditions and trends in the environment.
Program descriptions are organized by federal department and agency. Each
description includes background information, statistical coverage, data collection
methods and frequency, geographic coverage, contact persons, recent publications,
and availability of databases.
Information can be retrieved from the Guide in a number of different ways. A
summary of search options is provided below. To get started, read To Install and
then consult the on-line user manual and the pull-down help screens when needed.
Read An Orientation to Folio VIEWS, which follows, for a general overview of the
information retrieval software.
Search Options
The Guide can be searched beginning at the Table of Contents, which lists programs
by department and agency. An alternative is to search the List of Databases, which is
alphabetized by database name.
The Guide also contains an index of approximately 400 key words and phrases (for
example, "air quality." "birds," or "carbon dioxide emissions") that can be helpful in
locating programs. Note that, in addition, Folio VIEWS information retrieval software
indexes all of the words in the Guide, making it possible to search on any word or
phrase.
To Install
To load the Guide onto your hard disk (approximately 664 K required), begin by
inserting the diskette into your floppy drive. From the floppy drive DOS prompt (A>,
B>, etc.), type load and press enter. On the screen, select AUTOMATIC. SOURCE
DRIVE shows where you inserted the diskette. Tab to Destination Drive/Directory and
after C: type GES (or select another name), then press enter.
The Guide will be loaded into your newly created directory. Be patient. The Guide
database is digitally compressed and, therefore, can take several minutes to load.
When loading is complete, go to the drive and directory that you selected and type
GES.(for example: C:\GES\GES), then press enter.
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An Orientation
to Folio VIEWS
Formats and
Comments
To navigate through Folio VIEWS, you mainly use escape (to back out towards the
main menu), enter, and space bar. Below are additional basic procedures. Consult
the on-line user manual and pull-down menus for further details.
Searching: When you press the space bar, three windows appear. The Words
Window lists all of the words or numbers appearing in the document. The Query
Window contains the word, words, or phrases on which you wish to search. The
Results Window shows the outcome of your search. Press enter to display all
paragraphs found. Press enter again for a full program description.
To search for words in combination (example: water and quality), press the space bar
and type in the words (the space between words will be treated as an AND operator).
The Results Window will show the occurrences of words individually and in
combination. Press enter to display the paragraphs found. Press enter again for a
full program description.
Search Operators: As noted above, AND (Ctrl+A) looks for words or phrases in
combination. OR (Ctrl+O) looks for all designated words or phrases. NOT (Ctrl+N)
determines how many paragraphs do and do not have the designated words or
phrases. EXCLUSIVE OR (Ctrl+E) looks for paragraphs with one of the designated
words or phrases, but not both. Parentheses and brackets determine the order in
which the operators are applied, just as in a mathematical equation.
User Manual: Press F1. Instructions are provided for File, Edit, Search, Display.
Pull Down Help Menu: At the top of the screen the words File, Edit, Text, Search,
Groups, Links, and Options appear. Press Alt + the highlighted letter to pull down
the menu, then select your topic. Press Esc to close the menu.
To Exit: Press Shift+F10.
Output to Printer or Disk: Press Ctrl -I- Print Screen to bring up a menu with options
for outputting text to printer or disk. With certain printers, it may be necessary to
save your selected text to disk for retrieval and printing through your word processor.
'.• Press Ctrl+S to bring up a menu with options for saving information in Folio
or generic word processor format.
Save:
This is the first of what we hope will become a regular series of computerized guides
to environmental statistics. We welcome comments and, in particular, suggestions fo.
expanding the coverage in future editions.
The Guide is currently available on 5 1/4" and 3 1/2" high density diskettes and in
printed form. To request a different disk or a printed version or to comment on the
Guide, write or call:
Center for Environmental Statistics
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (PM-223)
401 M Street, S.W.
Washington, DC 20460
Telephone: (202) 245-3726
Fax: (202) 382-4968
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