Statistical Compendia
Compendia provide quick and easy access to some most-sought-after statistical tables. Footnotes to these tables lead to the web site, statistical series, organization, or government agency that produces the statistics you’re looking for. Chapter headings in compendia may contain useful information about statistics on a particular topic, including the existence of time-series.
These compendia are available on the web and/or in the Reed library:
Proquest Statistical Abstract of the United States. Ref. Desk HA202.U5. Commercial version of the Statistical Abstract, launched this year. As with the original, web and print versions are available.
Statistical Abstract of the United States. HA202.U5 (1900-2012 in Southeast stacks, Level 2). The web version includes Excel tables.
State and Metropolitan Area Data Book. Ref. HA202 .S84 (earlier back to 1979 in Southeast stacks, Level 2).
City and County Data Book. Ref. HA202 .A36 (earlier back to 1949 in Oversize stacks, main level)
USA Counties. Data from 1979-2009. Date coverage varies for different indicators.
MapStats. Census web tool for locating current data sets by individual states, counties, and cities.
Historical Statistics of the United States, Earliest Times to the Present. Invaluable for tracking time series data. Also includes statistical tables. Landmark revision of a Census Bureau compendium that had not been updated since 1975. The print version and companion web site were published by Cambridge University Press.
Web Directories & Databases
The following web sites are great starting places for locating government data published directly to the web:
FedStats. A directory of statistics available from over 70 federal government agencies. See the Principal Statistical Agencies link for a good overview of the major data sets collected by the U.S. government. Data Access Tools is a list of links from several agencies that take you directly to downloadable statistics.
Data.gov. A catalog of data sets generated by U.S. government agencies. This relatively new resource is a product of the Obama administrations Open Access Initiative; locate data sets by agency or by subject.
UN Data. Downloadable data sets of country information from the United Nations and its partner organizations.
Data for Local Communities. Locates data about counties, cities, etc. in Oregon and Washington from state and local government web sites.
Proquest Statistical Insight. A subscription database that indexes statistical tables published by federal, state, and local governments and by international governmental organizations (IGOs) and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The database has 2 parts:
• Abstracts for statistical tables and publications.– search and download tables from publications or web sites.
• Customize Data -- create your own table using Statistical Data Sets feature.