Reporting and Newswriting: Reference Sources

Alphabetical section - Residents and businesses. Residential listings include full name, address, phone number, occupation, homeowners, multiple adults in household, home value, dual-income families and community abbreviation. Business listings include nature of business and business owner’s name.
Business Directory(yellow) - Alphabetical by business TYPE -- like the yellow pages of the phone book. Lists number of employees. May list web site and/or FAX.
Also includes Telephone key and Street Guide.
Demographic Summary - For each postal carrier route/zip code, demographic information listed: average estimated income; household age; median age of adults; median home values; median household incomes; owner vs. renter occupancy; average years lived at same address.

The best known statistical reference publication in the country. A comprehensive collection of statistics on the social, political, and economic conditions of the United States. Previously published by the U.S. Government and now privately published by ProQuest, Inc.

3 parts - 1 index and 2 volumes of entries. Also, international and regional editions
TIP: index refers to an ENTRY NUMBER, not a page number
The 2010 edition is available online.

Also available online through our STAT!Ref database

Summary of political activities by individual members of Congress (brief biography, career, address.) Organized alphabetically by state, each chapter begins with a summary of the state’s political climate and past political history.
Also includes ratings by 11 interest groups. National Journal ratings - panel of National Journal editors compile list of key roll call votes of Congress and then analyze them re how a liberal or conservative would vote...members then ranked according to relative liberal or conservative and ranked by percentile from 0 to 99. Lists committee memberships. An update service and convenient calendars of upcoming committee meetings and testimonies is available at: http://www.nationaljournal.com/almanac Note: the print copy contains a registration number which may be necessary to access some parts of the website.

Official handbook of the federal government, providing comprehensive information on the agencies of the legislative, judicial and executive branches. Also information on quasi-official agencies, such as EPA, and international organizations. Typical agency description includes a list of principal officials, a summary statement of the agency’s purpose and role in the fed. govt., brief history of the agency, a description of its programs and activities, and contacts for further information. Name index and agency/subject index in back.
Appendices: A - Commonly Used Abbreviations and Acronyms; B - Federal Agencies Terminated, Transferred, or Changed in Name; C - Agencies Appearing in the Code of Federal Regulations. Also available online.

Lists over 20,000 from all countries who have had at least one work published in English. Now in 6 vols. Best known authors (both fiction and nonfiction) to those just beginning careers.
Information: name(s); pseudonyms; nationality; birth year; genres; brief career information; publications; awards; address; online address/website. Death notation and year in Obits. section. Also, an index to writing categories and a citizenship index. NOTE: link above is to the 2014 edition.

Arranged chronologically. Indexed by author or keyword.
NOTE: The online version at http://www.bartleby.com is the 10th ed.