The Virtual Reference Room - Dictionaries, encyclopedias and almanacs page list these types of sources. An excellent place to begin your search for basic statistics is Statistical Abstract. Selected international data are also included. This source abstracts and reports statistical data from the many government agencies and private sources. The web-version contains over 1000 tables in a series of PDF files and also has plain text files of the frequently requested tables.
Many major newspapers are available electronically.
You may want to choose a national paper or a large paper such as Washington Post or The New York Times to begin. Go to the our Virtual newspaper rack Magazines are geared towards a general audience. The articles are usually short, written by journalist to give you a sense of an issue. Some magazines are not considered scholarly and should not be solely relied upon for research. Use our magazine collection .