SUM: zipcode + thanks

[Anurag Mehta]

hello everyone,

before i summarize the responses i recieved, let me just say one thing -
HOLY COW!! as you can no doubt see, i received an OVERWHELMING number of
responses. to say that the lists came thru in fine style would perhaps be
an understatement. hopefully people will be as enthusiastic in june when i
graduate and need a job. thanks a lot to everyone that took the time to
reply. of course i recieved some "put down" sort of responses as well: one
gentlman was concerned about the misuse of government money for research,
somebody thought it extremely improper to use lowercase letters and
questioned my education, and somebody had the usual nationalistic problem
about whether i needed american / non-american data. 

while submitting the request i suppose i should have clarified that i knew
about the zipcode coverages available in the sample datasets of various
software, but had been given to understand that these are not very
current, and not very homogenous. hence the search for other-than-software
sources. 

here's the summary of responses other than software sample datasets, in
the following format: 

source; url/phone; contact person; cost.

please note that this is only info i have received, i cannot vouch for any
of it, and none of it is my recommendation. 

1. Business Map - Scientific Technologies (includes the ArcView engine to
drive the program); (520) 325-3185, fax 325-3073; Barbara Lucero; $99.95

2. (only url) http://cedr.lbl.gov/cdrom/doc/zipcode.html

3. Dynamap/ZIP - Geographic Data Technology (updated yearly); 
800-331-7881; Keith Druhl or Michelle; annual liscence fee - $250 per
state or $995 entire country (US). 

4. ArcCity data set includes zip code data.

5. (only url) www.switchboard.com 

6. ZipBase - Urban Decision Systems; 800-633-9568; $200.

7. (only url) http://www.usps.gov/lookups/zip+4.html

8. GDT data - Geographic Services Corp.; dick at geoserve.com; Dick Kelley;
annual subscription with quarterly updates costs $1875.

9. Point zipcode data are at:

http://www.census.gov/ftp/pub/geo/www/tiger/resource.html 

and is 300 kb in size for all of the U.S. (including AK and HI). there is
also a quick lookup of zipcodes by name, county, and zip at

http://tiger.census.gov/places.html (both locations have ftp files)

10. Claritas - current zip code boundaries; Paul Evans; 800-234-5973. 

11. CIESIN processed TIGER boundary files from which you can approximate
zip code boundaries; ftp.ciesin.org:/pub/census/usa/zipeq

12. (only url) http://www.sammdata.com/

13. (only url) http://cedr.lbl.gov/cdrom/doc/tsui.html

hope this is useful

regards

anurag

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Anurag Mehta.
Graduate Student in Community Planning.
School of Planning, University of Cincinnati.

WWW Homepage: http://ucunix.san.uc.edu/~mehtaag/

All views expressed are my own. Any similarity with official university
views is purely coincidental.

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