A tutorial on using the U.S. Census American FactFinder website to answer ready reference questions and queries. Produced by Austin St. Peter @ Dominican University, River Forest, IL.

1. The American FactFinder
@ The U.S. Census Website
Austin St. Peter
Dominican University, GLIS
Ready Reference Instructional
Presentation:

2. The U.S. Census website, located at www.census.gov is a
veritable fountain of information. Census data is invaluable
for learning facts about population, housing, income &
economic status, education level, racial demographics, and
the connection of employment to place.
Obtaining meaningful access to the data contained therein
can be tricky.
Introduction

3. One of the primary ways to access this data is
through the use of their Data Tools & Apps.
The Census site provides over a different tools –
each of them with their own particular focus and
function.
Our focus for today’s presentation is the
American FactFinder tool.
Introduction

4. American FactFinder is the Census Bureau’s main method for
providing user access to the bulk of its current data.
This tool can be a great resource for finding popular facts –
especially ones about places and communities.
Click the image to open
a link to the main page!
Introduction

5. The American FactFinder Main Page
Clicking on the Logo on the previous page should have brought
to the American FactFinder Main Page (above). If it did not,
open a browser and navigate to factfinder.census.gov or click
the link here.

6. The American FactFinder Main Page
From the main page, there are several different areas of
interest. In the upper left hand corner, you will find the main
navigation bar, search options, and downloadable resources.
(We’ll return to this in more depth shortly.)

7. The American FactFinder Main Page
In the upper right hand corner, you’ll find links to a feedback
portal, an FAQ, a glossary, and a help page. There is also an
English/Spanish language toggle. (Unfortunately, only data
from Puerto Rico is available in Spanish.)

8. The American FactFinder Main Page
In the center of the page, you’ll find popular tables – don’t
overlook this area of the main page, as once in a while you’ll
find what you’re looking for without even having to search!

9. The American FactFinder Main Page
Finally, at the bottom of the page you’ll find the latest news,
provided tutorials, an address search, a clickable that will take
you to an email sign-up page, and further supplementary
information.

10. The American FactFinder Main Page
(I’m not sure who this kid is, but she’s being an awful good
sport about me doodling all over her main page.)

11. Using the AFF Search Options
Let’s take a closer look
at main navigation bar
and search options –
which are the bread and
butter of site. Here, we’ll
find the most direct
tools for retrieving
census data.

12. Using the AFF Search Options
You’ll notice that with
the exception of the
“home” link, the
navigation bar and
search options have
exactly the same names.
This is because they’re simply two different ways of
navigating to and accessing the same search and
download options.

13. Using the AFF Search Options
Enter the city
Pontiac, Michigan
into the “Community
Facts” entry field
And then click ‘Go’.
(or, alternatively, click “Community Facts” and
type Pontiac, Michigan in the entry field on
the following page.)
(Why Pontiac, Michigan? Because that’s the “rust
belt” city where I was born.)

14. The AFF “Community Facts” Search
This is the “Community Facts” data display page.
(As you can see, like John
Mellencamp I was born in a small
town.)

15. The AFF “Community Facts” Search
The navigation
menu on the left
side can be used to
find information
from ten different
subjects of inquiry.
Say for a moment
you wanted to
answer the
question,
“What kind of work do people who
live in Pontiac, MI do?”

16. The AFF “Community Facts” Search
You could find the
answer to this
question by clicking
on the “Business &
Industry” tab, then
clicking on the
“Economy-Wide
Key Statistics” link.

17. The AFF “Community Facts” Search
Doing so will take
you to a table
services page
which will display
the latest relevant
data.
By looking at the table, you can see that by both by amount of
business done and by number of establishments, people in Pontiac,
MI by far and away do manufacturing, food service, and retail work.

18. The AFF “Community Facts” Search
Here are some examples of other questions you could answer
using the “Community Facts” search:
- What is the high school graduation rate in Salt Lake City, UT?
- What is the median household income in area code 90210?
- How many people in Oak Park, IL are under 30?
- How many vacant rental units are there in Chicago, IL?
- How many U.S. citizens live below the poverty level?
The “Community Facts” search is just one of the three primary
ways of searching census data on the American FactFinder site.

19. The AFF “Community Facts” Search
The other two search methods are the “Guided Search” and
the “Advanced Search”. The “Guided Search” is the most
limited in terms of available user inputs and search results.
Hence, we won’t spend time covering that search method in
this instructional presentation.
Important Note: any time you move from one search type to
another, all of your search settings, selections, and inputs
(normally called a “search string”) are erased. So make certain
that you’re ready to move on or that you’ve written down or
otherwise saved your search string so that you can recall it if
needed.

20. The AFF “Advanced Search”
Returning the the main page, either click on the “Advanced
Search” tab on the navigation bar – or – click on “Advanced
Search” in the list of search fields and select “Show Me All”.

21. The AFF “Advanced Search”
Doing either will bring you to the “Advanced Search page”,
where users can construct far more complex search strings in
response to more precise queries, and in doing so find more
specific data than is possible through the other two searches.

22. The AFF “Advanced Search”
Say, for instance,
you wanted to
find out what
percentage of
households in the
metro Detroit
area were single-
race households.
A search string
for this
information
might look like
this:
Click on: Geographies
Click on: The “Select a
geographic type” menu
Select: Metropolitan
Statistical Area (310)

23. The AFF “Advanced Search”
Click on: Geographies
Click on: The “Select a
geographic type” menu
Select: Metropolitan
Statistical Area (310)
Select: Detroit-
Warren-Dearborn,
MI Metro Area
Click on: Add to
your selections

24. The AFF “Advanced Search”
This will add Detroit-
Warren-Dearborn, MI
Metro Area to “Your
Selections”. It will also
begin generating search
results from Census
data tables.
Click the close button on the right side of the screen.

25. The AFF “Advanced Search”
This will add Detroit-
Warren-Dearborn, MI
Metro Area to “Your
Selections”. It will also
begin generating search
results from Census
data tables.
Click the close button on the right side of the screen.

26. The AFF “Advanced Search”
From here, you’ll need
to do some narrowing
and refining. Select:
Show results from and
click ‘2014’. Then, click
the race/ancestry
selector under the race,
ancestry, or tribe entry
field.
From the options that come up, select “Black or
African american alone or in combination with one
or more other races”. After this selection, you’ll
have one very specific search result. Click on it.

27. The AFF “Advanced Search”
Here, we find our answer for the percentage of single race households in
the metro Detroit area: 95.1%.
Is this an extraordinarily high number? Well, using the Census data, this is
a question that also could be answered!

28. Conclusion
Obviously, the “Advanced Search” required far more steps and presented
a far higher amount of difficulty than the “Community Facts” search.
What I can say is this: with time, the amount of information that you can
find using these resources is staggering. It’s worth the time and
investment to put in.
I’ll conclude this presentation with a short list of resources and citations.
If you require any further assistance, stop by my desk or email me at
stpeaust@my.dom.edu. I’ll be happy to assist!

29. Resources
You can find a full list of the tools available at Census.gov here at this link:
http://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/guidance/which-data-tool/data-tools-
chart.html
The Census Bureau also provides their own “Quick Guide to American FactFinder” which
can be downloaded as a pdf from this link:
https://www.census.gov/prod/2009pubs/mso09aff.pdf
American FactFinder also has a “Getting started with American FactFinder” page that can
be accessed at this link:
http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/using_factfinder.xhtml

30. References
Cassell, K.A. & Hiremath, U. (2013). Reference and information services
(3rd edition). Chicago: Neal-Schuman.
U.S. Census Bureau. (2015). American factfinder. Retrieved on November
1st, 2015 from http://factfinder.census.gov/