PROVIDING ACCESS TO THE 1990 UNITED-STATES CENSUS MAPS

The U.S. Bureau of the Census has published on CD-ROM format data for the smallest geographic reporting levels. In depository libraries that select these products, librarians must decide what level of support they will provide to those individuals using these CD-ROMs. Providing access to the maps that define the reporting areas used by the Bureau within a county is one aspect of service that is unique to census files STF1A, STF1B, and STF3A. The paper illustrates the way these reporting levels are defined in the Tract/BNA Maps and Block Maps. The steps taken by one library to develop a link between a geographic area of interest to a patron and the areas defined on these maps are described. These steps include preserving and housing the maps in a way that makes them easy to use and preparing an index to the information contained on the maps using dBASE(R) software and information taken from STF1A using Extract software.