New eResource-Social Explorer

We now have a new demographic and data visualization resource for customers. Social Explorer provides access to demographic information about the United States with thousands of interactive data maps going back to 1790 most notably from U.S. census data and the American Community Survey. Social Explorer provides hundreds of thousands of data indicators across demography, economy, health, education, religion, and more. Examine the information at many geographic levels: national, state, county, ZIP, neighborhood and more. Use Social Explorer to visualize and interact with data, create maps, charts, reports and downloads. 

Staff in Strategic Planning and Services will be using this resource on projects specifically related to our library system and our community, but it is also being made available to customers. Small business owners can use it to do market research. Teachers can use the Teach and Learn section to incorporate data into their lessons. Anyone can use it to get to know their community better in a world where data literacy is an increasingly important part of 21st century life.

If you’d like to learn more about this resource, check out the Training Modules in the Teach and Learn section or watch this quick overview video to see the product in action. A full list of all the data sets available can be found in the Data Dictionary. 

See a few examples of our own community data below.