Census and Economic Information Center
MISSION AND HISTORY OF STATE DATA CENTER PROGRAM
State Data Center Program Mission
The SDC program's mission is to provide easy and efficient access to U.S. Census Bureau data and information through a wide network of lead, coordinating and affiliate agencies in each state. To accomplish this mission, the SDCs work in partnership with the Census Bureau through the Customer Liaison Office (CLO) and the Regional Offices of the Census Bureau. A Memorandum of Agreement between each state, the District of Columbia, and the outlying areas of American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands supports this partnership.
The State Data Center (SDC) Program is one of the Census Bureau's longest and most successful partnerships. It is a cooperative program between the states and the Census Bureau that was created in 1978 to make data available locally to the public through a network of state agencies, universities, libraries, and regional and local governments. The Business and Industry Data Center Program (BIDC) was added in 1988 to meet the needs of local business communities for economic data. SDC lead organizations are appointed by the Governor of that state.
The SDCs are official sources of demographic, economic, and social statistics produced by the Census Bureau. These data are made available by the Census Bureau to the SDCs at no charge (fees may be charged for customized products). The SDCs make these data accessible to state, regional, local and tribal governments, and non-governmental data users at no charge or on a cost-recovery or reimbursable basis as appropriate.
The SDCs also provide training and technical assistance in accessing and using Census Bureau data for research, administration, planning and decision making by local governments, the business community, and other interested data users.
State Data Center Program History
The State Data Center Program is a state-U.S. Census Bureau cooperative program that makes census information and data available locally to the public through a network of state agencies, universities, libraries and regional and local governments. The SDC Program was established in 1978 and the Business and Industry Program in 1988. The program is one of the Census Bureau's longest and most successful partnerships.
The SDC Program has felt the twinges of progress in technologies and public access to data. Twenty years since the creation of the data center program, significant changes have occurred in the areas of data collection, dissemination, and analysis. As a result, the Census Bureau and the Data Centers (through their Steering Committee) worked together to develop an action plan designed to "re-engineer" the SDC program.
During the first decade of existence, emphasis was placed on the SDCs as the place to go for data. They or their coordinating agencies had tape processing abilities. Data was provided from the Census Bureau to the SDCs via tape and on a first, free and automatically basis. This means that the SDCs received the data before it was released to the public, there was no charge for it, and it happened automatically and did not have to be formally requested.
In the 1990s, CD-ROM technology reduced distribution of data via tape. SDCs no longer need to be dependent upon a tape-processing organization if the SDC itself cannot process tapes. Data has more readily become available on the Internet in the late 1990s. Not only is it available to SDCs via the WWW but to the general public as well. SDCs have more specialized knowledge and expertise in the data--concepts, geography and applications, for instance. Yet, anyone can access and use the data whether it is an appropriate usage or interpretation or not. This has led to SDCs re-evaluating their niche in the data environment and in the Census Bureau's long range plans.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, State Data Center Program
Last Modified: April 30, 2007
