HERE IS a REPLY from the Census Bureau regarding the API forum and about the API itself.   I am posting her response as I believe CB staff are not allowed to post to listservs. 

Elaine Murakami

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Hi,

API members are approved usually daily.  There are no unapproved members currently in the membership queue.    (If you are still having a problem getting approved, please contact Lisa Wolfisch Lisa.Wolfisch@census.gov directly).

To answer some of the questions there - the API currently includes all of ACS 5 year 2010 and a portion of SF1 variables.  These are listed at http://www.census.gov/developers/data/sf1.xml

The API only allows a few variables per call at a time because we need to limit the work on the back end that the server does for each API call, but there is no limit on the calls an application can do.


Note that the API pulls individual table cells and not tables. For example because Total Population exists as a cell in several tables, you can get to it with different variables as noted below, like

<variable name="B02001_001E" concept="B02001.  Race">Total:</variable>
<variable name="B03001_001E" concept="B03001.  Hispanic or Latino by Specific Origin">Total:</variable>

Please send anyone my way for further help.

Lisa Wolfisch
Chief, Web and Social Media Branch
Center for New Media & Promotions
U.S. Census Bureau
v: 301.763.5716