National Trade Data Bank and National Economic, Social, & Environmental Data Bank NTDB - National Trade Data Bank The Commerce Department has collected trade data from about 20 federal agencies including: Bureau of Export Administration Energy Information Administration US Trade Representative Bureau of Economic Analysis Bureau of Labor Statistics Bureau of Export Administration Export-Import Bank Bureau of the Census International Trade Commission National Institute of Standards & Technology Overseas Private Investment Corp. Office of Business Analysis Small Business Corporation Office of International Economic Policy University of Massachusetts (MISER) Office of Trade Development Foreign Agriculture Service US and Foreign Commercial Service International Price Indexes International Labor Statistics Entries may be long descriptions of a country's trade policy and practices, or statistical tables on US exports of a product. The Foreign Traders' Index (FTI portion of the NTDB is a directory of foreign companies which have expressed interest in dealing with American businesses. For much, but not all, of the information in NTDB there is a print counterpart. NESE - National Economic, Social, and Environmental Data Bank The NESE contains a wealth of statistical information on a wide variety of topics. Data sets include: Capital Stocks Economic Report of the President National Energy Accounts Toxics in the Community 1990 Census Summary Budget of the US - Historical Tables Statistical Abstract - Construction Stats. US Industrial Outlook, 1992 Business Cycle Indicators Digest of Educational Statistics Annual Input-Output Tables Annual Energy Review Business Statistics Health Statistics, 1990 Fixed Tangible Wealth Criminal Victimization in US Gross State Products Capital Punishment in US National Income and Product Accounts Crime and the Nations Households Regional Projections to 2040 Drugs and Jail Inmates, 1990 Weather Conditions in US Female Victims of Violent Crime Prisoners in 1990 Probation and Parole in 1990 School Crime Women in Prison Economic and Budget Outlook, 1993-1997 Airline On-time Records Searching NTDB & NESE F keys are used to help you navigate through both NTDB and NESE. F1 - Help - Context sensitive HELP key. F2 - Info - Displays a program description for the data you have on the screen. Very helpful. F3 - View - Displays data you have chosen. F3 - Zoom - Once you are on a table or text F3 allows you to see smaller type so that more appears on the screen. F3 - Bulletins - Allows you to look at bulletins about NTDB and NESE. F4 - Plan - Displays current (default) search expression - AND/OR/NOT F4 - Headers - Once you are on a table this will superimpose the column headers on the data. F4 - Atch - NESE only. Allows you to look at LOTUS 1-2-3 formatted tables. F5 - Print - Print selected documents. F6 - Copy - Copy to disc. F7 - Logic - Displays AND/OR/NOT search operators. Allows you to combine terms to narrow your search. F7 - Find - Within a text document you can search for a particular term. Must be at the top of the document. F8 - Mark - Marks (selects) information. F9 - Find - Within a FIND text search allows you to go to the previous occurrence of the term being searched. F10 - Find - Within a FIND text search allows you to go to the next occurrence of the term being searched. The first menu you will be faced with is: SOURCE TOPIC PROGRAM SUBJECT ITEM QUIT Source - Agency originating the information, i.e. International Trade Commission Topic - General category of programs, i.e. agriculture or interest rates Program - More specific programs by name, i.e. international price indexes Subject - Keywords contained in document titles, i.e. Canada (Warning: titles may contain abbreviations such as Can, or may not contain words you would expect to find.) Item - Specific document identification code, i.e. LS INTEMP INU0022AU0 (Not very useful) Searching these two databases is primarily done by using the arrows to highlight text and pressing enter. Move through lists of terms by typing the first few letters of a word. F3 views a documents after you've selected it. Combining Terms Both NESE and NTDB allow you, by using the F7=Logic key to combine search terms. Choose your first search term - highlight and enter Press F7 - AND/OR/NOT will display AND - will select documents in which BOTH terms appear - steel AND production OR - will select documents in which one or the other term appear - steel OR iron NOT - will eliminate documents in which a certain term appears - steel NOT automobiles Highlight the operator you want and press enter Choose your next search term The number in the upper right corner of the screen will show you the number of records retrieved by your search. Simply press F3=View to view the resulting documents. Tips *Both NESE and NTDB allow you to search the text of their files. Remember that tables don't really have much text. When you search text you are primarily search textual documents not statistical tables. *The F4=Atch key in the NESE will be important in order to view files in Lotus 1-2-3 and graphic formats. *Be sure to clear results completely when beginning a new search. The number in the upper right corner should be the total possible, i.e. 456 of 456. *The information in both NTDB and NESE is also available in printed format. The information describing a table may be cryptic. Looking at the printed version of the statistics may clarify a question. F2=Info or F1=Help will sometimes display extra pertinent information about a particular table such as what footnotes (represented in a table as /4) means. A typical table heading in NESE looks like this: Source : USDOC, Bureau of Economic Analysis Program Key : EA BUSTAT Program : Current Business Statistics Update Sched. : Monthly ID Number : EA BUSTAT 501098 Title : Industrial production, tobacco, total Date of record : 19920320 Data type : MONTHLY TIME SERIES Start year : 1961 End year : 1991 End period : 12 Seas. adjusted : S Precision : 1 If the units are listed as $ (dollars) Frequency : M you might also see Units : I87 Scale : 9 or Scale : 6 Units : I87 mean that the table is an index and in the index year of 1987 the value was 100 Scale : 9 means that the amount is in billions (1,000,000,000 - 9 zeros) Scale : 6 means that the amount is in millions (1,000,000 - 6 zeros) Alderman Government Documents Fact Sheet. No.25 Prepared by Barbie Selby, Alderman Library, Univ. of Virginia August 1993, rev.1