check out my stat abs!

The Census Bureau has taken my beloved favorite, the Statistical Abstract of the United States into the 21st Century!

The home page for this source, subtitled The National Data Book, has gotten a facelift to include more web-friendly navigation (note the side menu of categories) and even excel files to download. These improvements are only applied to the most recent edition (2006), which means you might could create a real pretty pie chart displaying Household Pet Ownership in 2001, but you couldn't create a chart to assess trends in pet ownership over a decade or so unless you wanted to plug in the numbers yourself.

Of cousre, the best use of this amazing source is by browsing the print... the most recent edition lives on the Ready Reference shelf (sandwiched in between the Reference and Circulation desks) and on the fourth floor of Gelman under the call number HA205 .A51.