March 2014 Database of the Month

Published annually by the Federal Government since 1878, Statistical Abstract of the United States is a comprehensive summary of statistics on the social, political, and economic organizations of the United States. The 2014 edition is now available.

In the spring of 2011, the Census Bureau announced that the edition that year would be the last one produced at government expense. Despite protests from librarians and journalists and despite petitions to Congress, the Census Bureau unit that published the Statistical Abstract was eliminated in November. Its elimination resulted not from a decline in popularity or perceived value, but from the need to reduce agency spending while supporting new and existing data collection efforts. ProQuest has now taken on responsibility for updating and releasing this publication, the most used statistical reference tool in U.S. libraries.

ProQuest Statistical Abstract of the United States 2014 online edition includes significant enhancements:

• Line-item access to tables
• Updated monthly instead of annually
• Table-specific capabilities for narrowing results by source, data date, subject, type of data breakdown
• Available as a stand-alone or as a fully integrated part of ProQuest Statistical Insight—with discounts available to current customers
• Edited by ProQuest’s team of statistical experts

For more information on statistics websites, see the Best Census & Statistics Sites.