The U.S. Census Bureau has discontinued access to the American Fact Finder tool as of 3/31/2020. Here are some options for library staff to use to help determine the PSTAT (sort1 field) for new patron records and updated patron address information.
An updated digital Census Tract map can be found here: https://tigerweb.geo.census.gov/tigerweb/ You have to enable these options - Census Tracts, Blocks layer and the Places and County Subdivisions layer - to find the relevant information. The address search bar along the top can then be used to find where a particular residence falls within these areas.
- The Firefox extension that an MPL staff person created will, when enabled, automatically populate the sort1 (PSTAT) field in a patron’s record based on data from the US Census Bureau – if there is corresponding data for the address in their database. If there is not, you should mark the address as “UNDETERMINED”. ILS staff periodically perform clean-up on patron record’s that have an UNDETERMINED PSTAT.
- SCLS staff have reviewed and approved the script for this extension but do not provide support for it.
Another resource is My Vote WI - this does not provide enough detail for cities that use Census tracts in their PSTATs, but it works well for smaller incorporated places and townships. The exception to this is places like Village of Brooklyn which has multiple counties, because the My Vote site doesn't distinguish which county it is in.
- Click on the Search by Address button and enter the address information in the pop-up.
AccessDane provides county subdivision-level info via address searches for Dane County only.
- Click on the Address button under the Parcel Search header and enter the street address.