Mike Greenwald / Liang Long / everyone else: I have no experience with ACS Alchemist, but will certainly take a close look at it. Much of my research involves analyzing demographic/population at small geographies over large areas (county, state, national). I have used the ACS Summary File Retrieval tool for several years and really find it useful--probably have downloaded 40+ 2006-10 block grp level statewide datasets this year alone. Yes, there is definitely some cleanup and organization to get the data into GIS. But I really appreciate that the tool is reliable and creates easy-to-interpret tables with MOE. On the one hand the data cleanup prior to GIS takes time, but on the other hand the clear descriptions/headings reduces mistakes and ambiguity. Also, I can tell you from experience that the excellent column and row descriptions make tracing previous work much easier. I use Excel primarily, but Access occasionally (Census summary files etc). If my opinion or experience is of any help to you Mike don't hesitate to try me. I cannot promise much as far as time, but I may be of some assistance in some way. Jonathan P. Brooks. Assistant Transportation Researcher Transit Mobility Program Texas A&M Transportation Institute 701 N Post Oak Rd, Suite 430 Houston, TX 77063 Tel 713.686.2971 | Cell 806.440.2462 http://tti.tamu.edu/group/transit-mobility  -----Original Message----- From: ctpp-news-bounces(a)chrispy.net [mailto:ctpp-news-bounces@chrispy.net] On Behalf Of ctpp-news-request(a)chrispy.net Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2012 12:00 PM To: ctpp-news(a)ryoko.chrispy.net Subject: ctpp-news Digest, Vol 104, Issue 10 Send ctpp-news mailing list submissions to ctpp-news(a)ryoko.chrispy.net To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://ryoko.chrispy.net/mailman/listinfo/ctpp-news or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to ctpp-news-request(a)ryoko.chrispy.net You can reach the person managing the list at ctpp-news-owner(a)ryoko.chrispy.net When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of ctpp-news digest..."