CGHS Library

A More Visual Search Engine to Try

If you want to play around with a search engine that breaks topics down for you in a visual way, you might want to try instaGrok.

Resources Galore

CIA World Factbook

The CIA World Factbook is a fantastic online resourse that includes maps, flags, and detailed information about every country in the world. The blog post from Government Book Talk discusses CIA history, and how the Factbook is compiled along with the purpose it serves.

Citing Sources

Mapping America

As someone who remembers messing around with those huge Statistical Abstracts volumes and later the PDFs available by our Census Bureau, I am blown away with the easy data display possibilities presented by the New York Times’ research tool, Mapping America!

Students and teachers can now access and manipulate local Census data, based on samples from 2005 to 2009. (The Times notes that the data is based on samples and subject to a margin of error, particularly in places with lower populations.)

Maps are available for race and ethnicity, income, housing and families, and education.  Within each category, researchers may filter by a variety of related subcategories.  Data are searchable by address, zip code and city.  Maps are scalable and a simple shift of the mouse allows you to examine patterns and differences among and within communities.

The New York Times offers a Census Topic Page for a wealth of related content as well as this lesson on recent patterns in immigration.

Posted by joycevalenza on December 28th, 2010 on NeverEndingSearch.

Statistics Galore

I suspect the U. S. Census Bureau's publication of The 2011 Statistical Abstract is the kind of thing only a select few get very excited about, but there is a wealth of information right here. Not too long ago, I had to buy a big book containing all these statistics, the book was not that easy to navigate, and it was outdated almost instantly. Now you can discover almost anything you want to know about the social, political, and economic organization of the United States with just a grain of intelligence and a few clicks of your mouse.

Check Your Sources

PhotoShoppin' by Zak Wohlschlegel