American Statistics Index

Scope: This guide describes how to use the American Statistics Index to locate a wide range of federal statistics in McKeldin Library. If you have any questions or would like further assistance, please contact the U.S. Government Information, Maps & GIS Services staff at govdocs@umd.edu or 301.405.9165.

The American Statistics Index, also known as ASI, indexes statistical publications produced by the U.S. Federal Government. ASI is located at:

UMCP McKeldin Library, U.S. Government Information Reference

Call Number: Z7551.A4

Using ASI is a three step process:

Step One

Search the Index volume for your topic. The Index volume includes:

• Index by Subjects and Names
  This section includes subjects, place names, agencies, individuals, etc.
• Index by Categories
  Use this to find comparative data by geographic, economic, or demographic breakdown.
• Supplementary Indexes
  Locate publications by title or by an agency report number.

Step Two

Use the ASI accession number (found at the end of the entry) in the Index volume to locate the corresponding abstract in the Abstracts volume for the same year. The abstract will describe the publication and what kind of information it contains.

Step Three

Retrieve the publication. If the publication has a Superintendent of Documents (SU Doc) call number indicated by a degree symbol (°) in the Abstracts entry, it may be in the U.S. Government Information SU Docs stacks or Microfiche at that call number. In the example above, the SU Doc number is HE 1.63:998. If there is no SU Doc number, the publication may be available in the ASI microfiche collection, which is located in McKeldin's 4th floor Computer Lab. To find the publication in that collection, look in the drawer labeled with the year of the Index/Abstract volume you were using and find the fiche by the accession number.

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