From Book's Preface: Contains summary population totals for the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Island areas and for major race groups and an overview of political, statistical, and technological context in which the census took place. Describes preparations for the census, including lessons learned from the 1990 census, consultations with governmental and other data users, recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences and other advisory groups, and the plans for and results of census tests conducted between 1992 and 1998. Summarizes the history of each question on the short and long forms, the response categories, data uses, and any associated editing, allocation, and coding instructions. Reviews evaluations and recommendations from the 1990 program, the decision to use paid advertising in Census 2000, developing and implementing an integrated marketing strategy, components of the partnership program, and a series of special initiatives. Describes the organization and distribution of regional census centers and local census offices, the hiring and training of temporary field staff, the hardware and software used to track and assess census progress, and the different components of the enumeration process. Summarizes the decision to hire contractors to conduct data capture and manage the data capture centers, the hardware and software used to capture census data, the headquarters tabulation process, identification and deletion of duplicates, editing and imputation, intermediate data files, and the creation of the 100 percent and sample detail files. Covers such topics as data collection and tabulation geography, mapping, creating and updating the census address list, data products and their dissemination, the experimental and evaluation programs, legislation, litigation, the debate over sampling, and the census in Puerto Rico and the Island Areas.

From Book's Preface: Contains summary population totals for the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Island areas and for major race groups and an overview of political, statistical, and technological context in which the census took place. Describes preparations for the census, including lessons learned from the 1990 census, consultations with governmental and other data users, recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences and other advisory groups, and the plans for and results of census tests conducted between 1992 and 1998. Summarizes the history of each question on the short and long forms, the response categories, data uses, and any associated editing, allocation, and coding instructions. Reviews evaluations and recommendations from the 1990 program, the decision to use paid advertising in Census 2000, developing and implementing an integrated marketing strategy, components of the partnership program, and a series of special initiatives. Describes the organization and distribution of regional census centers and local census offices, the hiring and training of temporary field staff, the hardware and software used to track and assess census progress, and the different components of the enumeration process. Summarizes the decision to hire contractors to conduct data capture and manage the data capture centers, the hardware and software used to capture census data, the headquarters tabulation process, identification and deletion of duplicates, editing and imputation, intermediate data files, and the creation of the 100 percent and sample detail files. Covers such topics as data collection and tabulation geography, mapping, creating and updating the census address list, data products and their dissemination, the experimental and evaluation programs, legislation, litigation, the debate over sampling, and the census in Puerto Rico and the Island Areas.

The usefulness of the U.S. decennial census depends critically on the accuracy with which individual people are counted in specific housing units, at precise geographic locations. The 2000 and other recent censuses have relied on a set of residence rules to craft instructions on the census questionnaire in order to guide respondents to identify their correct "usual residence." Determining the proper place to count such groups as college students, prisoners, and military personnel has always been complicated and controversial; major societal trends such as placement of children in shared custody arrangements and the prevalence of "snowbird" and "sunbird" populations who regularly move to favorable climates further make it difficult to specify ties to one household and one place. Once, Only Once, and in the Right Place reviews the evolution of current residence rules and the way residence concepts are presented to respondents. It proposes major changes to the basic approach of collecting residence information and suggests a program of research to improve the 2010 and future censuses.