New ‘Abstract’ Holds Lots of Data

The number of employees working at book, periodical, and music stores fell nearly 60% between 2000 and 2011. That is just one of the millions of data points that appear in the new Proquest Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2013. The new edition is the first one released through the copublishing efforts of ProQuest and Bernan Press, an imprint of the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group. The two companies took over publication of the reference work after the U.S. Census Bureau announced in March 2011 that it would stop publishing the book after the 2012 edition. ProQuest handled the editorial updates—including the addition of 39 new tables—while RLPG is doing marketing and distribution. Statistics are based on data available as of August 2012. Price is $179.

In some other book-related data, the Abstract found the hourly pay for book, periodical, and music stores employees rose to $10.88 in 2011 from $9.59 in 2005. Hours worked, however, fell from 25.4 hours per week in 2000 to 22 hours in 2010.

Number of Employees, Book, Periodical, Music Stores