Reference Question of the Week – 10/14/07
October 20th, 2007 Brian Herzog
A patron called in wanting to know current crime statistics concerning murder, robberies and burglaries in Louisville, KY.
This particular patron has been considering moving somewhere for over a year, so we have a standard set of resources we refer to for city information.
One is a 4-volume set of books called America's Top-Rated Cities, which I like, but which didn't have the crime stats the way the patron wanted.
Another is the Sperling's BestPlaces website, which allows visitors to compare cities. However, their crime stats aren't very detailed.
The other standard is to search for crime statistics on the city's official website (Louisville, KY), but that wasn't much help in this case.
So, next was a general internet search, and a few of the more helpful websites were:
The last one (a personal blog, so hurray for "reference 2.0") referenced an FBI crime statistics report, so I went to the FBI's website to look for it.
After a quick search I found the Crime in the United States 2006 report, and linked to its Table 8: Known Offenses for State, City, which ultimately lead to to the Crime Stats for Kentucky's cities.
This was exactly what the patron was looking for, and I had it printed out and waiting for him when he came in. And next time, it won't take me nearly as long to answer this question.
