CANADA -- GOVERNMENT AGENCIES

Statistics Canada. (http://www.statcan.ca/start.html) Statistics Canada is Canada's National Statistical Office. It collects a wide variety of surveys and census data, and has been rated one of the best statistical agencies in the world. Today, their web site has over 60,000 pages, including a good deal of free statistics.

The most popular feature on the Statistics Canada web site is The Daily, which is released every working day at 8:30 a.m. The Daily provides highlights of newly released data, including statistical graphs and summary tables, with links to priced products that give more complete information. It is free to subscribe to this product via email. The archives of past issues can be searched or viewed, back to 1995, making this an excellent source of statistical information.

The second most popular feature on the Statistics Canada website is Summary Tables. Tables may be listed by subject, province/territory, or metropolitan area. A keyword search feature is available. These tables are generated from the CANSIM time- series database, so when that database is updated, Canadian Statistics are also updated the next day, again at 8:30 a.m. These free tables offer information on sources or links to more detailed information.

Every five years, Statistics Canada does a Census of Population and Agriculture. Selected data from the Census of Population and Agriculture are available on the Statistics Canada website, usually at the Canada, provinces and territories levels of geography, but occasionally at the census metropolitan area level. The subjects covered by the Census of Population include: age, sex, marital status and common-law status, families, structural type of dwelling, household size, immigration and citizenship, mother tongue, home language and official/non-official languages, Aboriginal, ethnic origin and visible minorities, labour market activities, household activities, place of work and mode of transportation, education, mobility and migration, sources of income, earnings and total income, family and household income, social and economic characteristics of families, occupied private dwellings and housing costs. Once again, the pages refer the user to priced products for more detailed information.

Another free product at Statistics Canada is the Statistical Profile of Canadian Communities 2001 and 2006. You can find information on 6,000 communities, including cities, towns, villages, Indian reserves and settlements. Generally, you can find information on the population, education, income and work, families and dwellings (1996 census), plus births and deaths.

The Downloadable publications (free) portion of the Statistics Canada web site (located under Products and Services) contains over 100 titles such as the Statistical Report on the Health of Canadians, farming facts, metal mines, food industries, etc., usually in .pdf format. It includes the Historical Statistics of Canada, second edition. This item is no longer in print. It "contains about 1,088 statistical tables on the social, economic and institutional conditions of Canada from the start of Confederation in 1867 to the mid-1970s.

The Statistics Canada homepage has a search engine that can search through a variety of sources including The Daily, CANSIM, Trade Exports, Canadian Statistics or the Online Catalogue. Note that at the bottom of the page, you can search the Thematic Search Tool, which takes you inside the surveys, often down to the individual variables. Also note, again at the bottom of the page, that you can search the remaining areas of the site.

STATISTICS CANADA AND THE DEPOSITORY SERVICES PROGRAM.
As with other federal institutions, Statistics Canada makes many of it products available to depository libraries, where it can be used by the public. This includes some of the more popular electronic products. The internet can sometimes be used to determine the contents of these electronic resources, which could be useful when deciding whether to refer a patron.
The Depository Services Program lists an Index of Downloadable Statistics Canada publications that are available to depository libraries. This can be found at URL:

• Econnections: linking the environment and the economy. (90 time series tables).
  
  http://prod.library.utoronto.ca/datalib/codebooks/dsp/16-200/ectns01.htm
• Labour force historical review cd-rom, 1976-2007. (over 100 time series tables)
  
  http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/datalib/codebooks/dsp/lfhr2007.htm
• 1996 Census Nation Series.
  
  http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/datalib/cc96/nation96.htm
• 1996 Census Dimensions Series.
  
  http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/datalib/cc96/dimen96.htm
• 1996 Census Profile Series.
  
  http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/datalib/cc96/profil96.htm

E-STAT: This warehouse of data was created by Statistics Canada as an interactive learning tool solely for the education community on a subscription basis. It has a variety of modules, including:

• Census of population, for 1996, 1991 and 1986, for Census subdivisions and Census tracts,
• Census of agriculture, 1996 and 1991, for census sub-divisions,
• Historical census data, 1665-1861, for a variety of colonial areas,
• Aboriginal Peoples Survey, 1991, aggregate statistics
• CANSIM (time-series), a sub-set of about 300,000 time series,
• Environmental data and 1997 federal general elections statistics.

Chief Electoral Officer. Results of the 36th General Election and by-elections for 1998-99 are available, as are contributions and expenses for candidates and parties.

Canada. Department of Justice. Research and Statistics. At the present time, they only have research reports (may contain statistics), but "coming soon" are statistical reports and fact sheets.

Canada. Indian and Northern Affairs. Statistical publications. Basic Departmental Data provides statistics on population, health, education, and social conditions of Aboriginal Peoples. There is also a good deal of Census information.

Canada. Industry Canada. This site has business, industry and market information, bankruptcy statistics, etc. This is a very large site, so take advantage of the search engine that is located on the home page. The Economic and market research / Statistics section includes economic indicators, monthly trade bulletin, industry overviews, economic research publications, etc. Using Trade Data Online, trade data can be generated for imports or exports, between Canada, regions or provinces and other countries, or U.S. states. Statistics can be by industry or by products. Performance Plus is a module that uses data from the Small Business Profiles by Statistics Canada. It provides detailed financial and employment data on small businesses. Many Business Information by Sector entries have statistics.

Canada. Natural Resources Canada. Statistics on Natural Resources Resources. This site provides access to the different sectors of the department which produce statistics. Related Links lists provincial agencies that produce statistics on natural resources. The Minerals and Mining Statistics Division provides access to statistics on mineral consumption, mineral exploration, mineral production, mineral trade, Canadian mining facts, and Minerals and Mining Statistics. The Canadian Council of Forest Ministers has a National Forestry Database Program. This site contains the Compendium of Canadian Forestry Statistics 1998 (Online only), National Forestry Database summary 1998 and Forest Regeneration in Canada 1975-1992. It contains statistics on Forest Inventory, allowable annual cut, forest fires, forest insects and diseases, forest products, forest management expenditure, revenues and economic profiles, silviculture and pest control products. Some tables go back as far as 1970. The Earth Sciences Sector provides access to a good deal of topographic information, such as the Canadian road network, elevation maps, aerial surveys, etc.

Canada. Public Safety Canada. Check the Publications link for information on: corrections, crime prevention, emergency management and law enforcement.

Canada. Transport Canada. Transportation statistics . This site presents statistics on all forms of transport: air, rail, bus, highways, marine, trucking, etc.

Government of Canada Departments and Agencies. Links to all the different departments, agencies, offices, secretariats, etc. associated with the Federal government.

Government of Canada Search Engines by Departments and Agencies. This page provides links to search engines for dozens of federal government agencies.

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CANADA -- NON-GOVERNMENTAL AGENCIES:

Bank of Canada. Rates and Statistics includes exchange rates, money market yields, government bond yields, historical interest rates, TSE composite index, international reserves, monetary conditions index, commodity price index, etc. Weekly Financial Statistics is updated on Friday afternoons.

Bank of Montreal. Econofacts.

Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse. The statistics section of this website offers information on alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, and other drugs. There are results from several drug use surveys such as highlights of the 1997 Student Survey on Alcohol and Other Drugs, by the Addictions Foundation of Manitoba. The site also has information on the costs of substance abuse, gambling, AIDS, and epidemiologic trends in drug abuse.

Canadian Council for Social Development is "a voluntary, non-profit organization whose mission is to develop and promote progressive social policies inspired by social justice, equality and the empowerment of individuals and communities through research, consultation, public education and advocacy". They have a section of their website that focuses on "stats and facts." Check the Free Statistics Archive where you can get poverty lines (and how the poverty line is calculated), poverty statistics including historical child poverty rates back to 1980, and a variety of welfare and income statistics. You will also find a wide variety of miscellaneous statistics, such as: proportion of young adults living with their parents.

Canadian Institute for Health Information. This is a federally charted but independent not-for-profit organization. It has been designed to assume a leadership position in health information. Quick stats provides information on health conditions, health services, health human resources, health spending / health costs, and health indicators.

Canadian Tourism Commission. Research and Statistics. This site presents a wide variety of statistics on foreign travel to Canada, trends, the economics of tourism, etc.

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CANADA -- INDEXING SITES:

GDSourcing. (Government Data Sourcing), by it's own description, is an Internet based research and retrieval company that specializes in helping researchers access statistics collected by the Canadian Federal government. Their web site provides free direction to Canadian statistics which are available on-line free of charge. Do not let their own description above fool you. In fact, they index both government and private sources for social, economic, environmental and other types of statistics. You can view lists of source agencies broken down as: Social statistics-government sources, social statistics-private sources, economic/environmental-government sources, economic/environmental-private sources. Alternatively, you can do a search of the site, or you can browse an alphabetical subject index. All in all, this is an excellent indexing site for Canadian statistics. One can only wish that there were an equivalent for provincial and municipal sources.

University of Toronto. Data Library Service. Finding Canadian and Finding U.S. and international statistics: These web sites deal "with the location of statistics, primarily in computer-readable form, with an emphasis on national data." There are a couple of interesting things about this site. First, it is organized by broad subjects, such as aboriginal peoples, agriculture, census, etc. Second, since this was created for a university audience, Laine Ruis includes many resources which are not free, but are available to depository libraries. Note that you could verify a source and refer a client to a depository library to access the statistical source.

Governments on the WWW: Canada. A comprehensive listing of government departments, agencies, and institutions.

Canadiana : This Canadian Resource Page. Stewart Clamen, a PhD student in the Computer Science department of Carnegie Mellon University, has created this web site which contains dozens of links to Canadian sites, including a section of "facts and figures" .

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CANADA -- STATISTICAL MONOGRAPHS:

Canadian Climate Normals. 1961-2000. Statistics are available by province, then by station.

Canadian Minerals Yearbooks, 1994-1998. (pdf) Canada. Natural Resources Canada.

National Forestry Database Program. This site includes the Compendium of Canadian Forestry Statistics (only online), National Forestry Database summary and Forest Regeneration in Canada

National Environmental Indicator Series. Environment Canada. Statistics at this site are arranged into four categories: ecological life- support systems, human health and well-being, natural resources sustainability, and pervasive influencing factors.

Health Care in Canada. Canadian Institute for Health Information publishes this annual report.

Historical Statistics of Canada. This out of print publication presents a wide variety of time series statistics for the years 1921 to 1974.

Statistical Report on the Health of Canadians. Statistics Canada. This 1999 report deals with the determinants of health and health status of Canadians.

Income Statistics and GST / HST Statistics. Canada Customs and Revenue Agency.

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CANADIAN NEWSPAPERS:

Globe and Mail: has columns which contain statistics, such as Amazing Facts Spectrum, and Facts and Arguments. These are generally kept online for only 7 days. There is a search engine.

National Post: selective articles from the past 60 days are published online, there is a search engine but it doesn't search the full text.

Winnipeg Free Press: selective stories are archived for 7 days, has a search engine.

Winnipeg Sun

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CANADA -- SEARCH ENGINES:

AltaVista Canada Search Engine - The Canadian Search Engine. Although this site now contains a directory, it is the search engine which is most useful. There are several features which can be used to perform a very specific search. Putting words into quotations will search the words as a phrase. Putting a + before a word means the word must be in all retrieved pages. The asterisk allows you to search all terms that begin with the letters which you specify. Consequently, searching for +"child abuse" + statistics +canad* will perform a fairly specific search.

Yahoo Reference Statistics. (mostly United States statistics)

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PROVINCIAL STATISTICS: MANITOBA:

Manitoba. Agriculture and Food. Statistics. The full text of many statistical reports are available online, including sector reports for grains/oilseeds, livestock, poultry, potatoes/other vegetables, specialty and forage crops. Other reports include the Manitoba Agricultural review, and Manitoba situation 1999 and outlook 2000 for Cattle, Hogs and Grains, Oilseeds and Specialty Crops.

Manitoba. Department of Conservation. This department now includes energy, environment, forestry, land information, parks, petroleum, sustainable development, water resources, wildlife and conservation. Each of these branches includes some factual data, often incorporated into publications.

Manitoba. Department of Finance. This department makes several reports available in full text, including: quarterly financial reports (back to 1996), highlights of economic performance, and budget reports (pdf).

Manitoba Health. Annual Statistics. This site provides statistics on: Population, Home Care, Seniors health, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, Adult Mental Health Services, Mental Health Centres, Hospital and Community Services, Medical Program, Personal Care Home Program, and the Pharmacare Program. This includes tables, figures and maps.

Manitoba. Departments. This web page provides links to other Manitoba government Departments and agencies.

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PROVINCIAL STATISTICS -- OTHER PROVINCES:

GDSourcing. Government - Federal Ministries and Provincial Departments. This site gives some links for each province. Note the link for British Columbia, BCStats, which has a very well developed website with a large amount of data.

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MUNICIPAL STATISTICS:

City of Winnipeg: Neighbourhood Profles. This site provides 1996 Census demographic information for the 15 wards of Winnipeg (St. Boniface, Transcona, Elmwood, etc.) and then by 228 neighbourhoods (The Maples, Garden City, Tyndall Park, etc.) Users can select their area from maps. Statistics are available in .pdf and Excel formats.

The Social Planning Council of Winnipeg has a statistics tab. Statistics are available, in pdf format, for Winnipeg Families and for Winnipeg's inner city, in some cases historical back to 1971.

Winnipeg Police Service. Statistical Information is available, including the 1995 statistical report, plus the 1997 and 1998 annual reports.There are also CrimeStat which provides crime statistics for police districts.

Federation of Canadian Municipalities. This is a good site for quality of life indicators reports.

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UNITED STATES AGENCIES:

U.S. Census Bureau. This major statistical organization provides access to a variety of statistical resources. The American FactFinder allows users to browse, search, access and map data. It provides access to population statistics including: projections, income, poverty and housing. Profile data is available for communities. There is also information available from the Census of Agriculture and economic indicators. It also provides access to several full text publications (.pdf) including the Statistical Abstract of the United States. Subjects can be browsed from A-Z, and there is a search form.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Data. This subsetting site can be used to extract statistics on employment, unemployment, CPI, compensation, productivity, etc. for up to the last 10 years.

U.S. National Center for Health Statistics. This site provides access to many reports that contain statistics (.pdf), including some web-only reports, and fact sheets. The Data Warehouse section provides access to a good deal of tabulated data, or you can go to CDC Wonder, "an online public health information system that can provide numbers and rates of sexually transmitted diseases, cancer cases or deaths in the United States. Users can request data for any disease and demographic group by submitting ad hoc queries against the available datasets."

Purdue University. Dept. Of Sociology and Anthropology. American Religion Data Archive. An online collection of aggregate and survey data for the study of American (including Canadian) religion. There is some ability to produce cross tabulations.

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UNITED STATES INDEXING SITES:

U.S. FedStats. This Federal Interagency Council on Statistical Policy site provides links to over seventy United States federal agencies that produce statistics. It often has direct links to specific data sets within sites, which can save time. The MapStats module allows users to create a map of the counties of any state, then to access statistics on that county, including: agriculture, population, demographics, business, crime, energy and environment. Subjects can be browsed from A-Z, and there is a search form

University of Wisconsin. Internet Scout Project. This site presents bi-weekly reports on internet resources in Business / Economics, Science / Engineering and Social Sciences. These reports contain "new data" which usually links to statistical data. Reports can be searched or browsed by subjects.

Northwestern University. United States Government Documents. You can search for U.S. government information, including statistics, by agencies, by titles, or by broad subjects.

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UNITED STATES -- ONLINE STATISTICAL MONOGRAPHS:

County and City Data Book. and County and City Data Book 2007 Users can subset statistics on land area, demography, households, mobility, family, births, deaths, health, crime, income, housing, labor force, trade, etc. for counties, states, cities or rankings for the United States. See also, Historical County and City Databooks

Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches. This site provides membership statistics.

Statistical Abstract of the United States. This full text (pdf) resource provides information on: population, vital statics, health and nutrition, education, law, geography and environment, parks, recreation, travel, elections, government, finances, defense, labour force, income, prices, banking, energy, sciences, agriculture, etc. It also contains limited comparative international statistics.

United States Historical Census Data Browser. Decennial 1790 to 1970. Prior to 1830, most data is population variables. From 1840, more variables are added including occupation, education, churches, mortality, prosperity and wealth. Statistics are available at the county and state levels.

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UNITED STATES -- NEWSPAPERS:

Internet Public Library. Online Newspapers. You can browse for newspapers by state, by title or you can search the collection.

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UNITED STATES -- SEARCH ENGINES:

AltaVista Search Engine. Although this site now contains a directory, it is the search engine which is most useful. There are several features which can be used to perform a very specific search. Putting words into quotations will search the words as a phrase. Putting a + before a word means the word must be in all retrieved pages. The asterisk allows you to search all terms that begin with the letters which you specify. Consequently, searching for +"child abuse" + statistic* will perform a fairly specific search.

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OTHER COUNTRIES:

United Kingdom. Office for National Statistics. This site includes basic population and economic statistics. For example, UK in figures gives time series data for the last 4-6 years, including: economy, people, state and land.

Northwestern University. GODORT. An extensive list of links to foreign government sites.

United States. Census Bureau. Statistical Agencies (International). An extensive alphabetic list of national statistical agencies is presented.

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INTERNATIONAL STATISTICS AGENCIES:

Food and Agricultural Organization. FAOSTAT. Time series data for most countries or regions of the world, mostly going back to 1961. Subjects covered include agriculture, nutrition, fisheries, forestry and food quality control.

International Labour Organization. LABORSTA. This site provides 23 characteristics for 200 countries or territories. The default is for the last 10 years, but the database goes back to 1969. Characteristics include employment, unemployment, hours, wages, strikes, etc.

International Monetary Fund. Country Information. Most countries have a page with links to a variety of IMF documents. In particular, look at the Staff country reports with Statistical Appendices that contain detailed economic statistics generally going back five years. (pdf)

OECD. Statistics portal. This site presents basic statistics for the 16 OECD countries.

United Nations. CyberSchoolBus. The Global Trends module deals with topics such as population, food, health and literacy. The InfoNation database has over 30 fields of information on 185 different countries.

United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization. Institute for Statistics. Unesco database with data from 1970, by subjects, region, country and year. The indicators module has 16 commonly used statistical indicators on education. The yearbook includes selected indicators from the 1999 UNESCO statistical yearbook, including science, technology, culture and communications. See also, the Data Centre for predefined tables, custom tables, global rankings, etc.

United Nations Industrial Development Organization. Selected Industrial Country Statistics contains basic statistics for countries and regions of the world.

United States. Foreign Agricultural Service. This site provides non- U.S. food market overviews, world agriculture production, world markets for selected commodities.

United States. Census Bureau. International Data Base. This site provides statistics for 227 countries and areas of the world, including: population, fertility, migration, marital status, family planning, ethnicity, religion, language, literacy, labour force, income and households. In some cases the statistics start at 1950, and there are projections to 2050.

World Bank. Development Data. A wide variety of development data is provided, including country data, topics (agriculture, education, environment, health, labour force), maps, and special features

World Trade Organization. Trade Statistics. Users can find value or volume of trade, for regions or specific countries, for the years 1980, 1985, 1990, and 1995-99. (excel or .EXE)

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INTERNATIONAL STATISTICS -- INDEXING SITES:

Governments on the Web. This site has a comprehensive listing of government agencies.

United States. Census Bureau. Statistical Agencies (International). An extensive list of agencies that produce statistics, from countries around the world.

University of California. San Diego. Data on the Net. Search or browse links to 850 internet sites for social science statistical data.

University of Michigan. Statistical Resources on the Web. This site is arranged by broad subjects, which then lead to narrower subjects and then individual resources.

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INTERNATIONAL ONLINE STATISTICAL MONOGRAPHS:

Country Studies. U.S. Library of Congress. This series "presents a description and analysis of the historical setting and the social, economic, political, and national security systems" for over 100 countries.

Demographic Yearbook. United Nations. Population of capital cities, and cities of 100,000 or more, with longitude and latitude.

Foreign Labor Statistics. United States. Bureau of Labor Statistics. This subsetting site allows users to access time series data for employment, unemployment, hourly compensation, CPI, etc. for 16 countries, in some cases going back to 1950.

Penn World Tables. This site presents basic time series statistics for 152 countries 1950-1992. This is a good site to use to compare characteristics. You can also plot the data.

The State of Food Insecurity in the World, 1999. FAO. A statistically packed report on the world's food insecurity, this item includes many graphs and maps.

World Economic Outlook. International Monetary Fund. The Statistical appendix contains tables of comparative statistics, generally annual from 1992 to present, plus 10 year averages for 1982-91 and 1992-2001. The Tables and Figures contain some historical statistics, such as Population since 1750. PDF

World Factbook. United States. Central Intelligence Agency. Basic statistics and maps of most countries of the world. Areas covered include: geography, people, government, economy, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues.

World Resources 2008: People and Ecosystems. World Resources Institute. This site includes summary information, data tables, trends and maps. The complete 2008 report is also available.

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INTERNATIONAL NEWSPAPERS:

Internet Public Libraries. Online Newspapers. You can browse for newspapers by country, by title or you can search the collection.

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INTERNATIONAL -- SEARCH ENGINES:

Yahoo. Search Engine Watch. Links to many search engines.

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PUBLIC OPINION AND SURVEY STATISTICS

CANADA -- PUBLIC OPINION STATISTICS:

BBM Bureau of Measurement. (broadcast data). Limited free data, such as top tv programs in Vancouver, is available. Press releases also give some statistics, such as largest markets.

Canadian Institute for Public Opinion. Canadian Gallup Polls. This site contains 300 polls, conducted from 1945 through 1994, on a variety of subjects. It allows keyword searching.

COMPAS Inc. Quite a nice site, with polls on a wide variety of topics from business through taxes. For recent polls, you can get the question and % responses. For older polls, you get a summary which contains the statistical highlights. It also has a search engine.

Environics Research Group. This site contains a wide variety of polling data. The archives gives summaries of "Focus Canada" and "Focus Ontario" polls back to 1997. They do some "online surveys", which could be a source of bias.

POLLARA/Insight Canada Surveys. This site provides access to polls back to 1992 (polls are released one year after they are conducted), including Perspectives Canada, Ontario Perspectives and several special polls. Note that they are in SPSS portable format.

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CANADA -- SURVEY DATA:

Statistics Canada is the largest producer of survey data in Canada. The Data Liberation Initiative provides access to the documentation for many of the Statistics Canada surveys. Often, the documentation includes the frequencies. Since they are in electronic formats, they can usually be searched for keywords.

University of Toronto. Data Library Service. Codebooks in Machine-Readable Format. This page gives direct access to the documentation for more than a dozen major surveys (Aboriginal Peoples Survey, Canada Alcohol and other Drugs Survey, National Population Health Survey). It also gives a link to documentation for the General Social Surveys and access to a search form which can be used to locate additional codebooks.

Sherlock. Create by a Quebec academic consortium, this site has a variable search form and access to the documentation for more than fifty surveys, usually in pdf format.

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UNITED STATES -- PUBLIC OPINION STATISTICS:

The Gallup Organization. This site provides access to summaries of polls, back to 1997, covering a very wide variety of subjects. You can see the polls by chronological order, by topics A-Z, or you can do a search.

Pew Research Center for People and the Press. Covering a wide variety of subjects, the reports of these polls contain the questions and percent answers.

The Polling Report. A wide variety of polls, including politics, policy, business, economy and the American scene (culture). Polls provide the question, frequencies, and on occasion, cross tabulations.

Times Polls. This is an excellent site. Although conducted by the L.A. Times, this site covers national, California and local polls. Stat sheets provide detailed poll results back to 1989, each one containing a series of cross-tabulations, in pdf format.

Washington Post. Polls go back to 1997, and there is a search form. For more recent polls, you can do online subsetting. The empahsis is on political and policy questions

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UNITED STATES SURVEY DATA:

American National Election Study. University of Michigan. Although not easy to use, this is a large cumulative survey, covering 1952-1992, 1996. The home site provides a good deal of documentation and statistical data. However, you can go to Survey Documentation and Analysis at Berkeley (SDA Archive link), where you can actually run cross tabulations of variables.

General Social Survey. NORC. This is a huge cumulative survey which holds information on a tremendous variety of subjects. You can look up variables and find the number of responses for questions. To extract / analyze, you can also go to Survey Documentation and Analysis at Berkeley (SDA Archive link), when you can actually run cross tabulations of variables.

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Data Archive. ICPSR. This is not an easy site to use, but it does offer the user the opportunity to do online analysis such as cross-tabulations.

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INTERNATIONAL -- PUBLIC OPINION STATISTICS:

European Commission. European Public Opinion. These European public opinion surveys include the standard Eurobarometer reports back to 1996 plus several recent special reports on controversial topics, such as the safety of food, biotechnology, child sex tourism and racism. (html or pdf) There are also the Europinion surveys (1994-98) and the Central and Eastern Eurobarometer reports.

INTERNATIONAL SURVEY DATA:

International Social Survey Programme. Started in 1985, the programme now involves 34 countries. Each year countries survey sample populations on subjects such as: role of government, social networks, social inequality, family, work orientations, religion, environment, and social identity. The web site offers access to the codebooks, which include the questions and frequencies , as numbers and as percents.

World Values Survey. This global survey of 65 societies is designed to measure basic values and beliefs. At this time, only limited findings and summaries are available.

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IV. MISCELLANEOUS:

Statistics Textbooks/Courses on the Web:

• Electronic Statistics Textbook.
  http://www.statsoft.com/textbook/stathome.html

• Finding and Using Health Statistics: A Self-Study Course.
  http://www.nlm.nih.gov/nichsr/usestats/index.htm

• Introductory statistics / by David Stockburger.
  http://www.psychstat.missouristate.edu/sbk00.htm

Internet Citation Guides:

Citing Electronic Sources in Resarch Papers and Bibliographies / Memorial Library, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Statistical humour:

Statistics Jokes:

http://www.ilstu.edu/~gcramsey/Gallery.html

Statistics Fun:

http://www.ilstu.edu/~gcramsey/FunArchives.html

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V. CONCLUSION:

Before starting to look, define what exactly it is that you need to find, including year/geography.

Think about broad subject terms that might include your specific need, and keywords that would indicate the presence of statistics.

Think about what agencies might produce such statistics. If available, you might want to check hard copy reference items, such as the Canadian Almanac and Directory.

If you are not sure which agencies might produce your statistics, check the indexing sites to see if links are included on their site.

Don't give up too early. Some sites have statistics, but they are not readily apparent, and require some effort to locate.

If you are still having no luck, try a search engine, but look for agencies or broad subjects area.

Know when to stop. In spite of the hype, the internet does not contain all the statistical information that it produced. Can you refer your patron to one of the depository libraries to explore additional resources? If you are an academic or school library, do you have access to restricted statistical materials, such as E-STAT? If not, you can always contact statistical data producers to see if they have additional statistical materials for sale.

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