You can find the labels for every cell in the ACS Summary File in the Census Bureau’s ACS FTP site.  They provide SAS input statements and labels in their UserTools folder - ftp://ftp2.census.gov/acs2009_5yr/summaryfile/UserTools/   The file is called SF20095YR_SAS.zip

Even if you do not have SAS, you can just change the file extension to “txt” and open it in Excel.  Remove everything but the labels then A simple ‘text-to-columns’ procedure in Excel and you will have a “look-up” table with the label in one column and the label in the next.

Hope this helps.

Nancy Gemignani

California State Census Data Center

Demographic Research Unit

(916) 327-0103 ext 2550

From: ctpp-news-bounces@chrispy.net [mailto:ctpp-news-bounces@chrispy.net] On Behalf Of Nancy Reger
Sent: Wednesday, October 26, 2011 8:44 AM
To: ctpp-news@chrispy.net
Subject: [CTPP] does anyone have a link to the field names in the 2005-2009 ACS file?

I’m trying to find a way to replace the field headers, B0010001 for example, with a more descriptive title. Does anyone have a way of doing this? I can’t find the data dictionary for the ACS – does anyone have a link?

Nancy Reger, AICP

Deputy Director, Transportation

MORPC

111 Liberty St. Ste. 100

Columbus, Ohio 43215

nreger@morpc.org

614-233-4154