March 2011
Research on Main Street: How to find really useful, really local information
I'm happy – very happy – to be able to tell you that my new book is published! Research on Main Street: Using the Web to Find Local Business and Market Information is from Information Today, Inc., and it's all about...well, the title tells it all! To celebrate (and maybe pique your interest?), this month's ResearchNOTES offers tips to get you started "going local"...
Social networking sites are a great way to identify or learn more about people from a particular place, but it's not always easy to search by location. LinkedIn helps you with their Advanced People Search page. Just enter a location name or postal code and the distance from your location. For identifying locally-themed groups, you can experiment with some keyword searching.
Local news sources – television, radio, newspapers – provide local insights that national sources can't. They also stay on a story long after their national counterparts have left the scene, so there's expanded coverage. To find news articles from or about a particular location, go to Google News' advanced search page.
The Census Bureau doesn't make it easy to find their datasets that drill to the local level. First try American FactFinder, where you'll find the American Community Survey and other resources that can easily be searched by geography. Also try CenStats Databases, and this geographic guide on Census.gov.
Good hunting!
Marcy
Marcy Phelps
Phelps Research
+1 303.239.0657 Email: mphelps@phelpsresearch.com
Web: www.phelpsresearch.com Blog: www.MarcyPhelps.com
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