By Kim Griggs in Wellington, New Zealand

People will be able to find out just about anything about the population of New Zealand when the country's 2001 census goes online at the end of the month.

For the first time, anyone anywhere will be able pick and choose at will between more than 300 census databases for free.

"People can just do it without downloading anything on to their own system," said David Archer, the general manager of dissemination at Statistics New Zealand.

"You don't need any passwords, nothing. You just go in there and it's right there for you."

Reaching out

Users of the New Zealand statistics will be able to construct their own subsets of information from census data based on geographical area, ethnic group, age, gender, educational qualifications, income and employment.

There was no way to get that information before because it was too expensive

Eileen Wharton, Wellington City Council librarian

Before this, people had to pay for customised data services that cost a minimum of NZ$3,300 (�1,100), and up to about NZ$25,000 (�8,333).

"What we want to do is widen that out to the likes of community groups, non-profit organisations," said Statistics New Zealand's Steve Ramsey.

Wellington City Council librarian Eileen Wharton, who has tested the service, says community groups have often come to the council for information.

"It's exactly what they need and there was no way for them to get that information before because it was too expensive," she says.

No barriers

The new system will allow people to find information about their local area easily.

"People often only want to know how many children under five or what's the income level or what the ethnic groups are in their area," said Ms Wharton.

"It gives them the ability to do that without wading through a big publication or a massive spreadsheet."

If we can make the data free, hopefully what we are going to do is grow the use and the awareness of the data

Steve Ramsey, Statistics New Zealand

The new service will also remove the cost barrier.

"Even if you say 'We can do this for you, but it's going to cost NZ$300 (�100) for a customised request,' to a tennis club that's an awful lot of money," said Mr Ramsey.

"If we can make the data free, hopefully what we are going to do is grow the use and the awareness of the data."

People using the system will also be able to compare data from the 2001 census with the 1991 and 1996 censuses.

The resulting information can be printed out or downloaded.

Dead easy

That downloading ability is one of the advantages of the new system for Dr Chris Skelly, a senior advisor at New Zealand's Ministry of Health and another user who has tested the service.

"It allows us to download a table and immediately attach that to our map graphics and immediately build thematic maps," he said.

Previously users had to work with the software that was provided.

"Now we are getting a nice generic, dead easy format to use it in," said Dr Skelly.

Preventing a rush

Statistics New Zealand hopes to avoid the problems that plagued the online release of the England and Wales 1901 census - which was overwhelmed on its first day - by staggering the release of the data over five months.

"We are not going to suddenly tell people, 'Right, there are eight data modules there, go for your life', because I think then we might have problems," said Mr Ramsey.

"I think what we will get is a slow build rather than that rush of people."

To provide data from the 2001 census online for free, the government has allocated NZ$617,000 (�205,000) over the next four years to fund public access.

"Everyone has invested in providing information in the first place," said Mr Ramsey. "It seems only reasonable that we should be able to give it back to them."