Race & Ethnicity: Data Snapshots

By Lars Plougmann@Flickr.com

Following the release of the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2010 Census, several demographers and research institutes are worth noting for the helpful graphs and maps they have created to highlight changes in the racial and ethnic landscape of America. These data snapshots, based on the 2010 U.S. Census and the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, offer a quick and easy overview of the country’s racial and ethnic make-up in terms of residential segregation, income segregation, population changes, and other demographic shifts over the past few decades.

Using Census Data

Working with census data can be tricky. There’s so much of it, and there are so many new tools to use. (Fortunately, we no longer use the card punchers seen in the photo above, circa 1950.)

Infopeople, a non-profit organization that trains reference librarians, has a series of archived webinars on how to use census data.

Part one (Census Data: Your Table Is Waiting) deals with finding and accessing census data from the 2010 Census.

Part two (The Census: American Community Survey) offers insight into working with the more frequent census survey and using the new online access tool American FactFinder.

Part three (I Didn’t Know the Census Bureau Did That!) digs deeper, focusing on accessing and using data from lesser-known Census Bureau surveys.

The webinars are led by Linda Clark, from the US Census Bureau. Site registration is required to view the archived webinars