Library:

Statistical Resources

Reference Books

Reference books are found in the physical Library and in our e-book databases, netLibrary and Books 24x7. A reference book is a work, such as a dictionary or encyclopedia, containing useful facts or information. Because these books are consulted for brief information and not read all the way through, they do not leave the library. They are located in the reference section, that is, in the first couple rows of books in the Library. Here's some that might be helpful (though, this is not an exhaustive list):

R 304.61 AME American Marketplace: Demographics and Spending Patterns
R 305.896 STA Statistical Record of Black America
R 317.3 UNI Historical Statistics of the United States 1789-1945
R 317.3 WAT Statistical History of the United States
R 338 BUS Business Statistics of the United States
Books 24x7 Plunkett's Computer & Software Industry Trends & Statistics, 2004
netLibrary Education Statistics of the United States
netLibrary Plunkett's Airline, Hotel & Travel Industry Almanac
netLibrary Plunkett's Retail Industry Almanac, 2004

Often, books that you can check out are published about specific companies and/or industries. Use the Library's catalog to search for such titles.

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Databases

(I need help accessing the databases)
The Library subscribes to--that is, pays for--a number of databases that contain articles, books an other information for you to use for your research. Because of the cross-disciplinary nature of statistical research (there are statistics for just about anything you can imagine!), relevant information might be found in all of the Library databases. The particular subject area of your search will dictate which database to use. Here are some suggestions:

Business topics: Search in Business Source Premier (EbscoHost), Academic Search Elite (EbscoHost), and Academic Universe. Use "statistics" as one of your search terms.
e-books: Search in netLibrary or Books 24x7. Use "statistics" as one of your search terms.
News: Use the Philadelphia Inquirer, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, or Newspaper Source. Use "statistics" as one of your search terms.

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Web sites

(I need help choosing quality websites)
Because anyone can publish anything they want on the Web, you need to be cautious about which sites you choose to use. Here are sites we recommend for researching this topic:

BizStats
(http://www.bizstats.com)
A great resource for small business statistics, across a wide variety of industries.
County and City Data Book
(http://www.census.gov/statab/www/ccdb.html)
The Data Book uses data from the 2000 Census to provide statistics on all U.S. counties, cities of at least 250,000 people, and places of more that 2,500 people. Topics include population, income, age distribution, ethnicity, employment, and housing.
FedStats
(http://www.fedstats.gov)
A portal to the statistics produced by 100 federal agencies. You can search by keyword, agency, state; and, consult a variety of different statistical collections published by the United States.
Historical United States Census Data Browser
(http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/
stats/histcensus)
You can find historical data on literacy, education, ethnicity, marital status, age distribution, as well as farming and manufacturing for the years 1790 to 1960.
National Center for Education Statistics
(http://nces.ed.gov)
The NCES collects and analyzes statistics for all aspects of education in the U.S., along with some educational data for other nations.
National Center for Health Statistics
(http://www.cdc.gov/nchs)
The NCHS publishes statistics on all aspects of public health, birth, death, marriage, and family.
Pennsylvania State Data Center
(http://pasdc.hbg.psu.edu)
The Commonwealth's repository for demographic and economic statistics. You can search by geographical region or type of data (housing, births, military, tourism, etc.)
Small Business Administration: Research and Statistics
(http://www.sba.gov/advo/research/)
An amazing resource for statistics and data on small businesses. The data cover topics such as women- and minority-owned business, firm size, finance, technology, procurement, regulation, taxation, the environment, and exports.
Statistics of U.S. Businesses
(http://www.census.gov/csd/susb/susb.htm)
This site covers most of the country's economic activity, including data on companies, "establishments," employment, and annual payroll. It does NOT include data on self-employed individuals, employees of private households, railroad employees, agricultural production employees, and most government employees.
Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics
(http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook)
This site provides data the characteristics of the criminal justice system (expenditures, number of employees, etc.), public attitudes towards crime and the criminal justice system, the nature and distribution of criminal offenses, the judicial processing of defendants, and the persons under the supervision of the correctional system.
United Nations Population Information Network (POPIN)
(http://www.un.org/popin)
This massive statistical repository includes international data for population distributions, projections, vital statistics, social indicators, as well as data on children, women, refugees, health, education/literacy, and urbanization.
United States Census Bureau
(http://www.census.gov)
You know it, you love it: it's the Census. They collect and publish statistics about population, housing, income, poverty, genealogy, business, and geography.

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