With its comprehensive collection of social, political and economic data, the Statistical Abstract of the United States has long been considered an authoritative reference source.  Curious about Wisconsin cranberry production in 2010?  This publication has your answer.  However, due to the need to reduce agency spending, the Census Bureau published its last edition of the Abstracts in 2012 and turned production over to ProQuest.  Since this vendor is already well respected for its Statistical Insight and Statistical Data-Set databases, the new editors aim to resemble the former Census Bureau version as much as possible.

The ProQuest Statistical Abstract of the United States 2013 is available in print and online.   Due to licensing issues, not every table formerly produced by the Census Bureau is re-produced in the ProQuest version, but there is additional content including 39 new tables on contemporary issues such as electronic device ownership, childhood obesity and employment in the “green sector”.

The online version is updated monthly instead of annually, plus you can search using any term and the results will reflect table titles, notations of content, data source and dates.  For detailed documentation on searching, consult the ProQuest Guide.  And for a retrospective look at data, the Hein Online U.S. Federal Agency Library contains the Statistical Abstracts from 1878 to 2012.

Submitted by Cheryl O'Connor on February 25, 2013

This article appears in the categories: Law Library