The ALA Washington Office has issued an action alert on the proposed termination of the Statistical Compendia Branch. The alert is available here: http://bit.ly/gyCIfS. The text of the alert follows.
"In the coming weeks both the Senate and the House Appropriations committees will be working on the FY2012 budget. Please take the time to inform them about the importance of the Statistical Compendia Branch’s work.
When President Obama released his 2012 Budget Request to Congress, he included the U.S. Census Bureau’s Budget Estimates, which called for the termination of their Statistical Compendia Branch.
This branch compiles and releases such reports as the Statistical Abstract and the National Data Book that include usable data for the American public. As the Bureau’s own Budget Estimate states, “the abstract provides a comprehensive summary of industrial, social, economic, and political data…of almost 300 government, private, and international agencies”.
Message to Congress:
- Continue funding for the Statistical Compendia Branch
- The Statistical Compendia Branch compiles and releases important reports such as the Statistical Abstract and the National Data Book that provide understandable data to a wide swath of the American public.
- This material is used by librarians, educators, students, private businesses, state and local government officials, etc.
There is no other existing location where this data can be found in a similar usable format."