More than just a ten-year count, the US census is a collection of high-quality, geographically detailed, and free and open datasets that describe the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of the nation on an on-going basis. This issue of
Library Technology Reports
provides readers with a crash course on the census: learn about the concepts on which the census is organized, the key datasets, accessing data online and through scripts via APIs, and considerations for using GIS, historic data, and microdata. Librarians will gain knowledge they can use for assisting members of their communities with census data, and will see how the census can be used for library planning and research.