Every 10 years, the United States conducts its nationwide census.  Starting in January in the most remote parts of Alaska, Census mail is sent to address and registered homes, while door to door census workers take stock of who is living where, all to get a full picture of who makes up the population of the United States.  

For scholars of social sciences, the census publication marks the dissemination of an incredible amount of data that can be viewed through all sorts of media to the point where patterns and trends can be analyzed and observed.  Through Census data, insights can be gained regarding health patterns, immigration trends and flows, agricultural information, and more.

Researchers have mined census data on a variety of topics, for example, this interactive visualization uses the census data to explore trends in higher education for young adults aged between 18 to 34. To learn more about this visualization, go to this link. 

As our workshops continue this year we will be focusing the March workshops: 

March 11: Introduction to Data/Statistical Sources in Social Sciences

This workshop will cover some of the different major social science databases that the BC Libraries provide access to.  Having knowledge about the different databases at your disposal can help you navigate and understand the trends and connections within census data.

March 18: Preparing and Visualizing Census Data with Tableau

Here, participants will get hands-on experience in Tableau.  Different visualization types, use cases, and common tasks will be covered all using census data in Tableau.  Come to this workshop to gain an understanding with Tableau and develop ideas on how this technology can help with research in the humanities, sciences, and more.

March 25: Analyzing Census Data in Excel

If you are working with data, it is very likely that you are familiar with Excel! Whether it is for demonstrating data or collecting it for further research, this workshop will cover basic and advanced excel functions.  This workshop will help you access data from the Census Bureau using the American FactFinder, format tables for data analysis, and create data visualizations such as sparklines, hierarchical charts, and histograms.