People my age may recognize the heading for this entry as lyrics from a Sesame Street song from, well, a while ago. Some form of this question always appears at the top of a library’s to-do list for developing a long-range plan, and nowadays, the Internet offers all kinds information to learn more about your community.
Walking out the door and through the neighborhood probably remains the best way to find out that your neighbor, Mrs. Nelson, lived in Nairobi for 10 years, or that Mr. Louis plays several musical instruments, but cool new tools that “mashup” data from myriad sources can offer a broad view of Hometown, USA. *Note: It is important to distinguish between extrapolated data that provides a general picture and data with real depth. A general view does not offer the kind of details that reveal the real gems of any neighborhood.
As an information specialist preparing community profile reports to aid the library’s long-range planning efforts, I mined many of the typical go-to sources for information about the library’s potential users. Census.gov’s American FactFinder provides numbers to help put together a profile, and my county’s development authority and the state’s extension service keep track of interesting statistics—things I wouldn’t think about tracking—to demonstrate changing demographics. There are lots of sites with community information. The following are some that I’ve had fun with:
www.everyblock.com/ Everyblock.com does dig to a pretty granular level. Unfortunately, it’s only available for (a growing number of) select large cities, but it assembles information at the neighborhood level within those cities from: local government information (crimes, building permits, and restaurant inspections); a variety of news media outlets; and interactive Web sites (like flickr, Craigslist). A great way to keep up-to-date if you happen to live in one of the cities covered.
www.zipskinny.com According to the folks at zipskinny, they provide a “first glance” at a ZIP code area, and they caution against using it for serious research. I think that's a good description. The data presented is derived from the Census.gov Web site and provides a snapshot of social indicators, economic indicators, and demographics for each ZIP code. And you can compare snapshots of up to 20 different ZIP codes at a time.
www.claritas.com/MyBestSegments/Default.jsp?ID=20 “My Best Segments” allows you search by ZIP code for a different kind of neighborhood snapshot. Nielson, a leader in identifying consumer trends, offers free access to part of its data; it identifies “segments” (distinct lifestyle types) within each ZIP code, based on consumer lifestyle traits. Take this info with a grain of salt, but worth exploring for leads.
Walking out the door and through the neighborhood probably remains the best way to find out that your neighbor, Mrs. Nelson, lived in Nairobi for 10 years, or that Mr. Louis plays several musical instruments, but cool new tools that “mashup” data from myriad sources can offer a broad view of Hometown, USA. *Note: It is important to distinguish between extrapolated data that provides a general picture and data with real depth. A general view does not offer the kind of details that reveal the real gems of any neighborhood.
As an information specialist preparing community profile reports to aid the library’s long-range planning efforts, I mined many of the typical go-to sources for information about the library’s potential users. Census.gov’s American FactFinder provides numbers to help put together a profile, and my county’s development authority and the state’s extension service keep track of interesting statistics—things I wouldn’t think about tracking—to demonstrate changing demographics. There are lots of sites with community information. The following are some that I’ve had fun with:
www.everyblock.com/ Everyblock.com does dig to a pretty granular level. Unfortunately, it’s only available for (a growing number of) select large cities, but it assembles information at the neighborhood level within those cities from: local government information (crimes, building permits, and restaurant inspections); a variety of news media outlets; and interactive Web sites (like flickr, Craigslist). A great way to keep up-to-date if you happen to live in one of the cities covered.
www.zipskinny.com According to the folks at zipskinny, they provide a “first glance” at a ZIP code area, and they caution against using it for serious research. I think that's a good description. The data presented is derived from the Census.gov Web site and provides a snapshot of social indicators, economic indicators, and demographics for each ZIP code. And you can compare snapshots of up to 20 different ZIP codes at a time.
www.claritas.com/MyBestSegments/Default.jsp?ID=20 “My Best Segments” allows you search by ZIP code for a different kind of neighborhood snapshot. Nielson, a leader in identifying consumer trends, offers free access to part of its data; it identifies “segments” (distinct lifestyle types) within each ZIP code, based on consumer lifestyle traits. Take this info with a grain of salt, but worth exploring for leads.
RSS Feed