the Internet Public Library
the Internet Public LibraryThis is a guide to and starting point for research about basic demographic information on the World Wide Web. Demographic information consists of numeric data or statistics involving groups of people. Some questions requiring demographic information to answer would include:
Some demographic information takes the form of data, numbers that must be interepreted. Other demographic information takes the form of statistics, numbers that have already been interpreted. The following resources may help familiarize you with the language used:
Glossary of
Selected Social Science Computing Terms and Social Science Data
Terms
http://odwin.ucsd.edu/glossary/glossary.html
Just like the name says! This glossary includes names for different
kinds of data, particularly in the social sciences, as well as
defining some of the terms used in the extraction and analysis
processes.
Glossary of
Research Terms
http://www.worldopinion.com/resgloss.taf
Broader but still probably useful, this glossary covers many aspects
of social science and business research.
Statistics Every Writer
Should Know.
http://nilesonline.com/stats/
A site of statistics for beginners.
Basic Statistics
for Clinicians.
http://www.cma.ca/cmaj/series/stats.htm
From the Canadian Medical Association. This covers hypothesis
testing, confidence
intervals, measures of association, correlation and regression.
Quite in-depth.
The U.S. Consitution requires that a census of population be taken every ten years. Today, this is known as the Census of Population and Housing. The Census measures many different things, including the number of people in the U.S., their races, their ages, and a great deal of information about their living quarters.
Bureau of the Census
http://www.census.gov
The Bureau of the Census is in charge of planning, conducting and
interpreting the Census. Their website contains information about the
history of the Census, information about what the Census can tell us,
and links to other Federal government statistical resources.
American Factfinder
http://factfinder.census.gov
American Factfinder is a web interface for Census 2000 information.
It allows users to create maps or tables by selecting a number of
criteria. American Factfinder is fairly complicated, so we recommend
that you use the tutorial before starting your research.
Historical
Decennial Census Population and Housing Counts
http://www.census.gov/population/www/censusdata/hiscendata.html
The Bureau of the Census provides a certain amount of historical
census data from the 1790 population counts to the present. Most
information is only available for certain years.
Historic United
States Census Data Browser (University of Virginia)
http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/census/
The University of Virginia, in combination with the Inter-University
Consortium for Political and Social Research has produced this web
site, which allows the user to browse Census data from 1790 to 1960.
IPUMS (University of
Minnesota Population Data Center)
http://www.ipums.umn.edu/usa/
Integrated Public Use Microdata Samples (IPUMS) are taken from
thirteen federal censuses. They are data samples from which users can
create an extract. Although the censuses have historically coded
different information, and recorded it differently, IPUMS has recoded
the samples to make analysis easier.
Statistical Abstract
http://www.census.gov/statab/www/
The U.S. Statistical Abstract is a collection of statistics
from a variety of sources, compiled and cited by the Bureau of the
Census. It is available in print at your local federal depository
library, or in Portable Document Format (PDF) form at the website. It
can also be useful as a locator of further resources.
County and City
Data Books
http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/ccdb/
For the more advanced user of data, the County and City Data Books
are extremely useful. This web interface, provided by the University
of Virginia Libraries, allows a user to customize, extract or subset
data from the 1988 and 1994 County and City Data Books.
DataFerrett
http://dataferrett.census.gov/TheDataWeb/index.html
This utility allows extraction of data from the Current Population
Survey (CPS), the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) and the
American Housing Survey (AHS).
US-Mexico
Demographic Data
Viewer (DDViewer)
http://plue.sedac.ciesin.org/plue/ddviewer/
Developed by Columbia University's Center for International Earth
Science Information Network, this utility allows users to dynamically
create maps on the fly based on demographic and socioeconomic data
for the US and Mexico.
This pathfinder created by Abigail Leah Plumb
Return to IPL Pathfinders | Ask a Question | Reference Center | the IPL Main Lobby.