Plainfield-Guilford Township Public Library  

An Affiliate Partner in the Indiana Data Center Program

 

Overview of the Data Center Network in Indiana

SDCs – State Data Centers are public access partners

BIDCs – Business/Industry Data Centers are trade and research organizations

 

Local access to a broad variety of data – that is what your library can do for your community. 

Become the point of access to data for your community, tapping into federal, state, and local statistics.

Why People in Your Community Need Data

 

  • Government and Non-Profits - to find challenges
  • Business - to find opportunity

 

Your library can assist its patrons by knowing:

  • Where the 10-year census data are and in what formats
  • Where more current sources of information are (STATS Indiana)
  • Whom to refer people to if they need material you can’t find
  • Adding selected data and maps to your Community page on the MPPL web site

A Quick View of Useful Web Sites for Locating Data

STATS Indiana – www.stats.indiana.edu

 

Federal (but many have local data)

FedSTATS – www.fedstats.gov

FirstGOV – http://firstgov.gov

Census Bureau – www.census.gov

Bureau of Labor Statistics – www.bls.gov

Bureau of Economic Analysis – www.bea.gov

National Center for Health Statistics – www.cdc.gov/nchs

National Center for Education Statistics – www.nces.ed.gov

FBI Uniform Crime Reports – www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm

 

Indiana

Indiana Department of Workforce Development

http://www.IN.gov/dwd/inews/lmi.asp

Indiana Commission on Higher Education

http://www.che.state.in.us/facts.htm

Indiana Department of Education

http://www.doe.state.in.us/htmls/education.html

Indiana Department of Corrections – Offender Statistics

http://www.IN.gov/indcorrection/facts1.html

Indiana Department of Health, Data and Statistics

http://www.IN.gov/isdh/dataandstats/data_and_statistics.htm

Indiana Department of Transportation - Publications, Motorist Information and Modes of Transportation

http://www.IN.gov/dot/

Indiana Family and Social Services Administration – Low Income, Mental Illness, Addiction, Mental Retardation, Disabilities, Aging, and Children at Risk

http://www.IN.gov/fssa/

Division of State Court Administration – Trial Court Administration and Statistics

http://www.IN.gov/judiciary/admin/trial_court/index.html

Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission – Data About Specific Utilities

http://www.IN.gov/iurc/

Complete Listing of All State Agencies

http://www.IN.gov/ai/gov/agencycomplete.html

 

Census 2000

The census asks the same questions of more than 180 million households, and an additional sample set of questions of 1 in 6 households.

The census does two important things:

n       One – it allows us to compare ourselves to anyplace in the nation, no matter how big or how small. 

n       Two – it allows us to look at neighborhoods, at the east side of town or the area near the public library and get valid, meaningful numbers of houses, people with disabilities, people who are poor or rich, educated or not.

 

            Decennial (every 10 years)

n       short form (100% count – all households & group quarters)

n       long form (sample of 1 in 6 households)

n       Learn about the census through its questionnaires - http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/pol02-ma.pdf

            Availability

 

Gateway to Census 2000 –  http://www.census.gov/main/www/cen2000.html

Use this site to find very localized data.  Call us if you need help!

Geography – hierarchy, maps and terminology

Two kinds of maps –

  1. Pinpoint locations or boundaries of cities, towns, census tracts, blocks and block groups
  2. Thematic maps, showing data

Example: boundary map

 

 

Examples of Thematic map

Source of data:  2000 commuting data from STATS Indiana