by Susan Ives, Alamo PC

 Numbers are important. The census will determine how our congressional seats are apportioned and how much funding we get for federal programs. I've always been a closet statistical junkie, wanting to know how much, how many, how big, how far and how long. If you give me percentages I'm happy and a standard deviation make my knees wobble with excitement. 

 The Bureau of the Census is a fine place to start looking for numbers about just about everything. I am particularly in love with the Gazeteer, which lets you enter a city, town or zip code and get all sorts of information about that place. There are 92 different data points that you can snoop into, ranging from mode of transportation to work to average number of toilets per household. Did you know that there are 32 housing units in Alamo Heights that lack complete plumbing facilities? Who would have thought! The Gazeteer is linked to interactive Tiger Maps of the area you choose. 

 Another place to stop at the Census Bureau site is their list of links; click on "related sites." They list the statistical offices of more than 70 federal agencies, of every state and of many foreign countries. Teachers and parents should take a good look at the kid's pages of federal agencies, which are listed here as well. 

 If you are looking for information about other countries, a great place to start is the CIA World Factbook. It has a map of every country of the world, and a ton of good statistical information, from exports to literacy levels. 

 Another source is the United Nations. Much of the basic information you need is on their children's site, the Cyber School Bus. There are charts on worldwide trends, information on the 183 member countries, and even a neat utility that lets you compare data on up to seven countries at a time. Many of the agencies of the UN maintain their own extensive and often free databases on just about any topic of world interest, from refugees to crime. 

A nice compilation of statistical sites is hosted by the University of Michigan. Categories include agriculture, business and industry, consumers, cost of living, demographics, economics, education, energy, environment, finance and currency, foreign trade, health, housing, labor, military, politics, science, sociology, transportation and weather. Numbers, numbers, numbers! If you were to print out their list of health statistic resources, you would use 14 pages. 

 Another academic resource is housed at the University of California at San Diego. They list 422 sources that have information available for download, primarily concerning business and the social sciences. 

A required stop for useful numbers is the American Journal of Demographics. A search for "San Antonio" got 48 hits; a search for "symphony" got 7. A search for "Internet" returned 300, their limit. The articles are full text, and cover January, 1993 to the current issue. Looking for weird facts? Find them here. The 10 zip codes where people are most likely to buy a car based on looks rather than performance. What market is growing faster: hot chocolate or coffee?(chocolate) In what month are home burglars most active? (July.) I'm in heaven. 

 I often need Internet statistics, and the best place to look is NUA. The Irish Samaritans provide precis of Internet surveys gleaned from a variety of sources. From them I learned that almost 75 percent of all US journalists use the Internet daily, up from 48 percent last year. The global market for home networking equipment should exceed $600 million this year and $5.7 billion by 2004. As many as 200,000 US Internet users are addicted to online pornography or sexually explicit chat rooms. Took me about two minutes to find all that fascinating data. The database is searchable, and includes references and links back to the original sources. 

If you are going to use statistics, you should be able to interpret them. The Internet has many resources to help. An easy introduction is on "Statistics Every Writer Should Know", which covers the basics, such as averages, percentages, sample sizes and confidence levels. Rice University has an online statistics book. It has Java-based simulations of several dozen sophisticated statistical tools. Arizona State has a Statistical Instructional Palette which includes an equation gallery and Dr. B's World Wide Web of Data, which is another very good source of links to statistical resources on the Internet. 

Susan Ives gets lots of good information on the Internet, as do the other 119.2 million Internet users in the US, two thirds of whom report that they would rather give up their phone and TV than their Internet access.