statistical data – St. Thomas Libraries Blog
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statistical data

Libraries, News & Events, Services

Federal Government Shutdown affects Research

It’s happened: the Federal government has shut down.

For those of you doing research today, you may start to encounter a screen that looks a lot like this one:

census.gov

Because of the shutdown, many websites funded by the federal government are currently also down, including statistical organization websites, public sites, blogs, online surveys, and more. Many of them are used by UST researchers on a regular basis.

Below is a list of websites linked to on our subject guides that we currently know of that have been affected; we will try to keep it up-to-date with anything new we discover. 

If you would like assistance finding alternative resources for your research, please feel free to contact any UST Librarian.

Resource Status
American Community Survey Shutdown
American Factfinder Shutdown
Bureau of Labor Statistics (including Consumer Expenditure Survey) Up, but not being updated
Census Bureau Shutdown
Department of Energy Up, but not being updated
Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) Website is down, but content is still available via the ERIC database (EBSCO-owned). No new data is being uploaded to EBSCO.
Fedstats Shutdown
Library of Congress Shutdown – Interlibrary Loan will also NOT be available from any federal library, which could potentially cause delays
National Center for Education Statistics Shutdown
PubMed Up, but not being updated
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Shutdown
United States Geological Survey (USGS) Main site shutdown; some critical subsites still live

Archived versions of these websites can all be viewed on the WayBack Machine (waybackmachine.org).  Other options for alternative sources of information can be seen on this list compiled by the Pew Research Center.

More information about the shutdown and available government services can be found at USA.gov.

Business & Economics

Google lists top 1000 web sites

Reposted from ResourceShelf. Shows ranking, reach %, # of unique visitors and page views. Updated monthly on the Google Ad planning site. Lists below from April 2010.

The Top 10
1. Facebook
2. Yahoo
3. Live.com
4. Wikipedia.org
5. MSN.com
6. Microsoft
7. Blogspot (owned by Google)
8. Baidu.com
9. QQ.com
10. Mozilla.com

Here are a few other rankings:

18. Twitter
22. Amazon.com
31. Flickr.com
44. IMDB
56. Linkedin.com
83. NY Times
102. Scribd
166. Reference.com
179. Reuters.com

Business & Economics, Charles J. Keffer Library, Recently Read

Massive Google Infographic

Click for the rest!

Click for the rest!

Most web users know and use Google.  According to comScore, a market research firm that tracks search statistics, Google captured 65.4 per cent of the US online search market in January.  That’s two-thirds of the 15.2 billion searches run in the US in January. 

Other interesting bits: Its global market share is estimated to be 86 per cent.  Its IPO price in August 2004 was $85; yesterday it closed at $541.  And there’s more!  It’s the #1 website in the world.  It processes 20 petabytes a day, or something like 1330 times the information currently held in the Library of Congress.

Want to see these figures and more?  Click the image for the rest of the Google Facts and Figures infographic, from Pingdom.

Business & Economics

Industries with the most new jobs, 2008-18

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, consulting will be the industry with the largest number of new jobs over the next decade.  “Three of the 10 detailed industries projected to have the most employment growth are in professional and business services: management, scientific, and technical consulting; computer systems design; and employment services. Altogether, these 3 industries are expected to add 2.1 million jobs.”  Find more details on these employment projections at the BLS website.

empl_growth

Business & Economics, Recently Read

Job hopping and business owning

Get ready to switch jobs if you haven’t lately.  According to the Book Of Odds website, the odds of having at least 15 jobs between the ages of 18 and 42 are a whopping 1 in 4.39.  The figures change a bit depending on gender and level of education. 

Graduates: be prepared to move around a bit. 

Note also a recent Gallup poll that reported business owners as having the hightest well-being of any occupational group.  Professionals and managers were close runners-up.   Transportation and manufacturing workers have the lowest overall well-being.

Graduates: own your own business. 

One path to owning a business is to get in on the ground floor of a small business, with the upcoming year being a good time to do so.   Forty-four per cent of small business owners indicate that they’re looking to hire in the next year in this recent survey from Intuit.com

Graduates: Get a job with a small business, use your entrepreneurial skills to grow and eventually buy that business, and enjoy the good life.

Business & Economics, Recently Read

BLS Spotlight on Statistics: Health Care

A selection of statistical data, charts, and graphs on various aspects of health care in the United States, from our friends at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Also available as a 13 page pdf, this spotlight deals with costs, demographics, and employment data on health care, with some excellent explanatory graphics and links to the underlying data sources where researchers can go for more information.

Sample graphs:

 
Business & Economics

Happy Birthday to the BLS!

Source of much of the nation’s important economic data, the Bureau of Labor Statistics is celebrating it’s 125th anniversary in 2009.  Publisher of often used titles like the Occupational Outlook Handbook and the Monthly Labor Review, BLS is also the home of official national data on unemployment rates, mass layoffs, workplace injuries, inflation and price levels, consumer spending habits, productivity, and time use, to name just a few.  Check out their website to learn more.

Sample cool graphs:

unempl

Cell phone usage

Cell phone usage

Time Use

Time Use