On January 20th (tomorrow) the original version of the Census Bureau’s American Factfinder will disappear, and the New American Factfinder will take it’s place. You’ll want to update any links you have in guides, web pages, and handouts to the new version at http://factfinder2.census.gov/.
The new version gives users a lot more options and paths for searching for census data. Unfortunately, this avalanche of options can make searching more daunting, as it’s tough to figure out where to start. You can look at the Quick Start guide for a brief intro or view a number of video tutorials and guides.
One approach is to use the old approach – choose the dataset first (Decennial Census, American Community Survey, Population Estimates, Economic Census, etc), choose your geography second, and then select the tables you want to view and download.
I’ve updated the census related libguides (US Census Data and New York City Data) and revised the Finding NYC Neighborhood Census Data Handout to reflect the changes. The Factfinder is one of several ways to access data (others being the Social Explorer for national or City data, and the City Department of Planning and Google Maps I’ve created for City data).