Lexis-Nexis Statistical Universe: A Tutorial

It is three o'clock in the morning, and you are struggling to find some data to use in your research paper. You need to find out which pet in U.S. households is more popular: cats or dogs. Where can you look to find some statistics on this?

Well, if you are affiliated with Syracuse University, you can point your Internet browser to the Syracuse University Library website and search one of the library's over 300 databases in hopes of finding data on your subject. Obviously, you do not have the time to search every database in hopes of finding statistics on pet ownership. This is when finding a specialized statistics database, Lexis-Nexis Statistical Universe in particular, is the first step to finding relevant and authoritative data for your research paper.

This tutorial is designed to teach you how to use Lexis-Nexis Statistical Universe (Statistical Universe) to find answers to your statistics-related questions. Statistical Universe will not answer all of your questions, but with 30,000 tables available, you may be surprise at how many topics are covered in Statistical Universe!

To start the tutorial:

• Open a second browser window (Ctrl-N in both Internet Explorer and Netscape).
• In the second window, go to the Syracuse Library website: http://libwww.syr.edu/.
• Click on the link for "Catalog/Databases."
• If you are off-campus, you must configure your browser to access the databases. If you have not done this already, click on the link for "Instructions for Remote Access to Databases" and follow the instructions for configuring your browser. When you are finished, go back to the "Catalog &Databases" page.
• From the "Catalog & Databases" page, click on the "Databases Main Menu" link.
• Under the heading "Databases Arranged by Title," click on the letter "S" (for Statistical Universe).
• Scroll down this list until you find Statistical Universe, and click on the link for the database. You should be seeing this page:

Now that you are on the right page, the tutorial can begin!

Click Here To Continue!

(David M. Oldenkamp, Syracuse University Library. Modified 3 March 2002)