The University Libraries provide numerous resources to locate major statistical resources and datasets. This guide will help you to locate those sources and to differentiate between data and statistics.
If you are having trouble finding data that you are looking for think about who else might be interested in this information.
EXAMPLE: Imagine you want information on the average weekly earnings of Boulder residents working in private industry. The United States Department of Labor may be interested in this information and if you go to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (part of the Department of Labor), you will find the State and Metro Area Employment, Hours and Earnings.
While information is released faster and faster, statistics still take a while to compile. This means that for the majority of resources, data from the current year or even last year may not be available when you want them.
EXAMPLE: For example, the Uniform Crime Reports (the number of crimes committed) routinely takes almost 2 years to be released.
More and more data is available online every day, but for some areas the data may still only be available in another format, such as a CD or book. One of the major databases for finding these sources is Statistical Insight. This database contains many of the tables it indexes, but we have copies of all the materials in hard copy (print or microfiche) in the Government Information Library.
If you still are having trouble, contact the Library by email or phone (303-492-7521) for assistance.