Kelvin Smith Library of Case Western Reserve University in partnership with the Federal Depository Library Program of the Government Printing Office and the US Census Bureau is the official mirror site for the United States 2000 Census ASCII text data files.  This site serves as the official back-up site to the Census FTP files at www.census.gov According to the agreement between Case, the Government Printing Office and the Census Bureau, these files will be available in perpetuity, allowing permanent accessibility.

The ASCII text data files are useful for those who want to load large amounts of data from census tables into other applications such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS), database management programs or statistical analysis systems.  FTP (file transfer protocol) is the method used to transfer these files.  Each file has an FTP documentation page for an overview of the ASCII text files and how to process them:

Summary File 1 (SF1) FTP and record layout documentation WORD Text
Summary File 2 (SF2) FTP and record layout documentation WORD Text
Summary File 3 (SF3) FTP and record layout documentation WORD Text
Summary File 4 (SF4) FTP and record layout documentation WORD Text
Redistricting File Structure 

The files are presented "as is" from the US Census Bureau.  CWRU does not take responsibility for their accuracy or support Census file content inquiries.  Please contact the CWRU Libraries if there are technical problems with this web site.