Please take some time to explore these resources both old and new soon. 

The Decennial Census, as mandated by the Constitution for the purpose of allocating Congressional representatives, also collects data  about households, education, income, home ownership and more. Users can find Quick Tables and demographic profiles, geographic comparison tables and thematic maps.

Every 5 years the Economic Census profiles the U.S. Economy from the national to the local level. These profiles are available as
Industry Quick Reports, Geography Quick Reports, and thematic maps.

In addition to the Decennial Census, each year the Bureau of the Census conducts the The American Community Survey (ACS) which  provides profiles of selected communities every year. This data is available in quick tables.

Last, but not least, the Population Estimates Program provides estimated data for the United States, areas within the United States, and Puerto Rico. This material is available in geographic comparison tables and thematic maps. 

An excellent guide to using the 2000 Census on American Factfinder is located at the University of Michigan Document's site
(requires Powerpoint, which can be downloaded from the site)

Infoshare Online
A powerful new addition to the Library's collection of demographic resources, this set of databases and their unique interface were developed to assist urban planning students at Queens College. One of the most important features of this site is the ability to see demographic data for NY City in geographic areas not generally available.  The Census Bureau offers limited geographic units that do not include the unique subdivisions of the five boroughs.  It has always been difficult to extract neighborhood data from the Census. This source gives users many options in configuring the tables they need. It also provides easy access to several data sets collected by NY City agencies that supplement the Census materials. The site should be a huge boon for students of sociology, education, health sciences, political science, and others. 

Using Infoshare Online's powerful interface and vast collection of data files researchers can create a profile of an area of their choosing.  Users may print their data or save it for use in a variety of popular spreadsheet, presentation, and mapping programs.

Infoshare Online includes over 3000 neighborhood definitions and 50,000 items of data gathered during the last decade on the neighborhoods of New York City. More are being added all the time. 

Geographic subdivisions include: (not all data is available for all areas)

Census Tract Zip Code Community  District Health Area Health District City  Council District School District Police Precinct

NYC Neighborhood United Hospital Fund Area Mental Health Region Sub-borough Area Assembly District State Senate District Congressional District Borough New York City

Data sets include: (not all data is available for all areas) 

Census 2000 (Redistricting File) 1990 1980  Public Use Micro-Sample (1990 Census) Immigration Housing & Vacancy Survey Land Use Businesses Economic Census: Retail Trade, Services Manufacture  Public Schools - Elementary & Middle  Public Housing Food Stamp/WIC Participation Public Assistance Child Care Crime Juvenile Detention Facilities

Non-profit Organizations Hospital Admissions/SPARCS Physician Location Births Deaths Communicable Disease AIDS Sexually Transmitted Diseases Tuberculosis Animal Bites Lead Exposure Cancer Breast Cancer  Mental Patients

ICPSR  Social Science Data for Researchers  (Electronic Data Files)

The Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), established in 1962, is an integral part of the
infrastructure of social science research. ICPSR maintains and provides access to a vast archive of social science data for
research and instruction, and offers training in quantitative methods to facilitate effective data use. To ensure that data
resources are available to future generations of scholars, ICPSR preserves data, migrating them to new storage media as
changes in technology warrant. In addition, ICPSR provides user support to assist researchers in identifying relevant data
for analysis and in conducting their research projects.

This resource, to which Brooklyn College has long subscribed, is now more accessible than ever because users may now download their chosen files directly from the website rather than acquiring tapes that need to be mounted on a mainframe for access. While not a resource for everyone since the materials are "not the analyzed findings of a study or statistics, but the raw collected data from which these statistics might be extrapolated....The majority of ICPSR's data files are ASCII fixed format files. The storage formats of data files may be either logical record length format, card image, or delimited format. The physical structure of data files also varies and may be either rectangular, hierarchical, or relational. Some data collections may also include data available in other formats, such as SPSS portable files or SAS transport files."  (ICPSR FAQ)  Data sets include many well known federal surveys which users can tailor to their own research needs. 

Their subject pages give a good overview of the types of data available: 
 

Census Enumerations Community, Urban Studies  Conflict, Aggression, Violence, Wars  Economic Behavior, Attitudes  Education Elites and Leadership  Geography and Environment  Government Structures, Policies  Health Care, Facilities

Instructional Packages  International Systems  Legal Systems  Legislative, Deliberative Bodies  Mass Political Behavior, Attitudes  Organizational Behavior  Social Indicators  Social Institutions, Behavior  Publication-Related Archive

SDA Online Data Analysis System
Selected ICPSR data collections (approximately 50 currently) are available for online data analysis. This allows users to  perform certain statistical procedures on the data, create custom subsets, or browse the codebook on the Internet, without  downloading the entire collection and importing the data into a statistical package.

This is done using the Survey Documentation and Analysis (SDA) software developed and housed by the  Computer-assisted Survey Methods Program (CSM) at the University of California, Berkeley. For more information on data manipulation options using this program click here.

Special Topic Archives
These archives are sponsored by agencies other than ICPSR, they focus on archiving  data in  specific subject areas. The special topic archives are maintained at individual web sites. Most of the data in the special topics archives is publicly available.

Health and Medical Care Archive (HMCA) 
International Archive of Education Data (IAED) 
National Archive of Computerized Data on Aging (NACDA) 
National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD) 
Substance Abuse & Mental Health Data Archive (SAMHDA) 
Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) 
Census 2000 at ICPSR