The South Carolina Office of Human Resources is offering a new feature, HR Podcasts. These are short 3-5 minute MP3 audio files updated weekly and “intended to provide our customers knowledge on current HR issues in the HR community” Topics featured so far include Electronic Data Storage, the new E-Recruitment system, and Onboarding. Listen to them while you work!

Census data can be confusing. Not everyone is born with a spreadsheet in their hand ready to take on large masses of numbers. That’s where Social Explorer comes in. This project from Queens College of the City University of New York uses interactive demographic maps to help you visualize just what those numbers mean. And a map is just more fun right?

Social Explorer has both free data to use and subscription-only data. Data available for the public to use includes US census data from 1940-2000, at the national, state, county, and sometimes tract level for mostly-general variables such as Employment or Race. Subscription-only data includes some block level, zip code and place level as well as more-specific variables such as Employment by Sex or Employment by Race.

Where this website really stands out is in the ease of use of the mapping interface and the amount of zooming in you can do. Looking at Columbia, you can see certain demographic trends very easily in a way that would be less meaningful in a non-map form. For example, the percentages of people in the educational profession go way up near the university. But family income is highest in Forest Acres and near Lake Murray.

In Social Explorer, you can also build tables for demographic information based on the 2000 Census. This is useful, but mostly the same interface as the detailed and custom tables you can make with American Fact Finder

Here is a map of Columbia by Median Family Income (2000 data).  Click on the map for the full image.

Don’t you wish that your handouts, webpages, brochures, Powerpoint presentations, etc had more …je ne sais quoi, allure perhaps, to them? Have you wanted good looking art to add pizzaz to your work but worried about copyright? Do you hesitate to add that same boring palm tree/squiggle/light bulb to your next staff meeting handout? Here are some links for quality photographs and clip art that can be used for your work publications.

Be sure to read the copyright notices before using art from these links. None charge for use, but may have different criteria for use such as non-profit use only.

US Federal Government

• Public Health Image Library (PHIL) from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. This database has photos, illustrations, and videos of many public health topics.
• USDA Online Photography Center The US Department of Agriculture Photography Center has some of its collection available online in the public domain. Be sure to scroll to the end of the website for the subject headings
• National Agriculture Library Image & Photographic Art webpage This webpage links to many other food and botanical image galleries.
• US Fish & Wildlife Services Pictures & Graphics webpage This webpage links to images related to fish and wildlife, including photographs and sketches
• GRIN: Great Images in NASA
• Library of Congress American Memory A gateway to many historical collections that have been digitized. The copyright for each collection is different, although many are now in the public domain.

Educational or other sources

• Images of American Political History Over 500 public domain images of American history, searchable by era, keyword, or special topic
• University of Alaska’s Alaska Clipart Collection Clip art of scenery, tools, art, geography, and more.
• Michigan Mine Safety & Health Training Clip art Images of mobile equipment, tools, people, and more related to mining and safety.
• Flickr.com Advanced Search This website features photographs from users around the world. While most still hold copyright, you can do a search for Creative Commons licensed photos. Then you can be sure the copyright holder allows certain uses on their works such as commercial use, or allowing modification of the image.

South Carolina

• South Carolina Parks, Recreation, & Tourism Image Library Use their South Carolina photography for “publications or broadcasts that promote South Carolina as a tourism destination to broad consumer audiences”

blinks, a large video search engine, announced recently ” that a wide array of PBS streaming video content will now be indexed and easily searchable at www.blinkx.com.“”blinkx users can find PBS’ award-winning educational, news and public affairs streaming content online, and will be able to search a broad variety of documentaries and other popular PBS programs. They will also find an array of educational programming, including streaming content made for classroom learning.”

There is an enormous wealth of knowledge in public broadcasting, and an increasing amount is being found available online. Here are some other links that might be of interest if you are looking for video or audio content.

• PBS NewsHour-search streaming video by keyword and subject
• Washington Week-search video by keyword, subject, and panelist
• Julia Child: Lessons with Master Chefs-search by keyword, subject, guest chef, series, or even ingredient!
• A list of all PBS shows, many of which have video content, can be found here

For South Carolina related video and audio content, here are some great ETV links.

• South Carolina ETV Video on Demand-selected archived video
• South Carolina ETV Podcasts-audio shows on arts, culture, music, and more
• S0uth Carolina ETV webcasts-streaming video for selected shows, currently Making it Grow, Bluegrass Express, and South Carolina Statehouse coverage.