The Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) named Social Explorer as an Outstanding Reference Source for 2010 this week.  (RUSA is a division of the American Library Association.)

The list is compiled by a committee of RUSA members who are readers’ advisory and reference experts. They review publications and online reference resources released in the previous calendar year and present their selections at the RUSA Book and Media Awards Reception at the ALA Midwinter Meeting.

Social Explorer is the only online-only research tool featured among this year’s awardees.  Click here to read more about the selection process and the other top resources.

The earthquake destruction and rescue mobilization in Haiti are much in the news.  Using Social Explorer, you can see the presence of Haitians in the US through maps and reports.

Haiti has a population of 9,035,536, according to the 2009 CIA World Fact Book.  Haiti loses population each year to emmigration, and many of those people leaving end up in the US.

Data reports created using Social Explorer and 2008 American Community Survey data show that the US has 776,434 residents with Haitian ancestry.   Additionally, 29% of Haitians in the US live in New York City and Miami.

You can also explore the US Haitian population with Social Explorer’s maps.  (Click on the below maps to explore different parts of the country.)

2000 Census Map of Haitian Ancestry

2000 Census Map of Foreign Born Haitians

Click here to find out more about subscribing for access to the latest data and all of Social Explorer’s tools and resources.

A new New York Times article uses data analysis and graphics from Social Explorer to discuss the latest shift in the racial composition of Harlem–a residential and cultural center for African Americans.

In “No Longer Majority Black, Harlem is in Transition,” Sam Roberts reports on the latest population changes in the historic neighborhood where the black population has decreased by more than half over the past few decades.  (Another historically black neighborhood–Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn–has experienced populations shifts as well, but has remained over 70 percent black.)

Social Explorer’s New York Times Illustration

Opinions on how racially integrated the neighborhood has become may vary, but the data clearly confirm that Harlem is losing its black population.  Additionally, foreign born residents from Africa and the Caribbean make up an increasing share of Harlem’s black population.

The article also quotes Social Explorer’s Andrew Beveridge saying that, “Harlem has become as it was in the early 1930s — a predominantly black neighborhood, but with other groups living there as well.”