Take a quick look - and come straight back - at the current home page, interface of the US Census Bureau's American Fact Finder.
Not only was last spring a decennial census year (so the census data will be about as current accurate as it ever gets) but as of sometime in January 2011 a new much more powerful, customisable, addictive
interface is due to launch:The NEW American FactFinder.
I recommend the (Flash) virtual tour.
There look to be a number of more detailed instructional Flash videos soon to come:
* Quick Start - available.
* Topic Search - n/a
* Search using Geographics - n/a
* Working with Search Results - n/a
* Create a Map - n/a
* Modify a Table - n/a
* Transpose Rows and Columns - n/a
* Bookmark and Download - n/a
Although a quick overview of each is shown in the tour video.
Search via:
* topic
* geography
* population group
* industry code
Leverage:
* enhanced table manipulations
---customize table views
---sort and filter columns of a table
---transpose rows and columns
---save and download customized tables
* advanced mapping capabilities
---select geographies from the map
---create maps from a table
---place labels and markers on maps
---download maps as PDFs
