LIBRARIAN’S GUIDE TO THE CENSUS

Not the population schedules we all know and love, certainly, but sometimes statistics are what the patron really wants!

LIBRARIAN’S GUIDE TO THE CENSUS
Place: Missouri Southern State University – Joplin
Date & Time: June 16, 1 pm-4 pm

The "Librarian's Guide to the Census" workshop will focus on the data that is on the www.Census.gov website and how to retrieve it.

The major tools that it will include are: the new American FactFinder website to access 2010 Redistricting data (and if Summary File 1 is released this summer before your workshop I will include it also); the old American FactFinder website to access data from the American Community Survey and the Annual Population Estimates program.

We will examine many of the tools on the Census homepage, including:

· Population projections
· The subject one-stop shops of: Housing, Income, Poverty, Health Insurance, International (I usually include this if presenting at a college or university)
· The homepage tools of (from left to right on the homepage): Catalog, Publications, Maps, [press] Releases, Minority Links, Statistical Abstract [which will have no further entries after the 2010 edition] Population Finder, Find an Area Profile with Quickfacts, Economic Indicators

We will examine some of the tools on the Census homepage in the A - Z files, including these:

· County Business Patterns/MSA-msa Business Patterns/Zip Code Business Patterns
· Service Annual Survey
· USA Counties
· Citizenship and Foreign-Born Data
· Current Industrial Reports
· Daytime Population
· Journey to Work and Place of Work

We will briefly look at some of the features on these State Data Center websites:

· Missouri State Data Center
· OK State Data Center.

Over and above learning how to access and retrieve (but not use) the data, I will include such additional considerations as:

· What levels of service should/could you provide? When to contact your State Data Center?
· What will be published from the 2010 Census in paper or CD formats?
· How do you handle book-marking, saving queries, and the fact that the website will time-out on you after 15 minutes of non-activity?

The workshop will not focus on Census concepts and Census and survey methodology. These topics will only briefly be mentioned. Nor will it focus on how to work with Census data after a customer has retrieved it, or how to examine methods of working with Census data in Excel.

More info? Contact Steve Beleu for more information!


May the Census be with you!