You and your patrons may notice U.S. Census workers soon in your neighborhood, sporting identification badges, starting now and throughout the year. Workers have begun canvassing addresses to make sure no one goes uncounted. One year from now, on April 1, 2010, the Census Bureau will begin counting the nation. Performing an accurate count of the population is very important. Information collected during the decennial census is used to: “distribute Congressional seats to states, to make decisions about what community services to provide, and to distribute $300 billion in federal funds to local, state and tribal governments each year,” according to the Census Bureau’s Census 2010 website. One of the main differences for Census 2010 is that there will be no long form to fill out. Everyone will fill out the same short form which takes a convenient 10 minutes to complete. For more information, please visit Indiana’s Census 2010 website for more on Why the Census Matters.