Re-publishing Census ACS data: Don't forget the metadata!

At Met Council, we extract a few hundred variables of interest from Census ACS – and we package these into Excel files for our state’s Tracts, BGs, minor civil divisions, school districts, and (new) ZIP code areas.

Your organization, like ours, probably does the same.

Depending on where you (re-)publish Census data, it might be a good practice – or a requirement! – to publish accompanying metadata. Here is a link to some ready-to-go metadata documenting “what is ACS”… www.datafinder.org/.../ACS5YearSummaryFile.html

You’re welcome to scrape and reuse the text.