Exploration 3: Flickr and Photo Sharing Communities

Will Require: Reading and Searching the Flickr site. (Optional to set up your own Flickr page). Time: @30 minutes to look at the sites; @15 minutes to post to your blog

From Maryland Libraries Learning 2.0:

"Photo sharing websites have been around since the 90s, but it took a small startup site called Flickr (and now owned by Yahoo) to catapult the idea of “sharing” into a full blown online community. Flickr uses "tags" or what we would call keywords to help identify and search for photos."

As we discussed in your first exploration, Web 2.0 is about participation and sharing. Flickr is a great example of Web 2.0 in action. The site allows users to create a place to upload their photos (up to 200 free), add caption to the photos, and think up personal labels or “tags” to organize their photos within a personal set and within the entire Flickr community. Flickr also allows other users to leave comments on your public photos and add "notes" to photos (as with most Web 2.0 sites, there are different privacy settings so viewing can be limited to a set few, if you so desire). Check out this photo of the BDN staff and see if you can find these features.

Just for fun: Go to the Flickr homepage and type in the search term “library” or “librarian” or some variation on that and take a look at what photos show up. The default search is a keyword search for photos and their captions or tags. After you’ve browsed that page, scroll to the top and click on “Groups”. This will give you specific Flickr communities that share photos on the specific topic of your search.

Recently, the Library of Congress has created their own Flickr account as part of their own experimentation with Web 2.0 applications. As LC's Matt Raymond explained in the LC Blog:

"many photos are missing key caption information, such as where the photo was taken and who is pictured. If such information is collected via Flickr members, it can potentially enhance the quality of the bibliographic records for the images."

You can read more about this endeavor and why they are doing it on the Library of Congress Photos on Flickr page. Take some time to browse the LC Flickr site and read the user comments/notes. You might find something interesting.

Optional Activity: Create a Flickr account of your very own and upload a couple photos (remember that you will be sharing these photos with co-workers, try to keep them generic or at least not too personal). Experiment with the captions and note features. Add some tags. Then post a link to your Flickr album in your blog. (FYI: If you have a Yahoo account, then you already have a Flickr account.)

Feeling really adventurous? Due to its enourmous popularity, Flickr has teamed up with several Blog sites to allow you to post your photos and write a blog while logged into Flickr and post it to your blog! Here are the instructions for setting this up.

A bit about tags from Maryland Libraries Learning 2.0:

Tagging is an open and informal method of categorizing that allows users to associate keywords with online content (webpages, pictures & posts). Unlike library subject cataloging, which follows a strict set of guidelines (i.e.Library of Congress Subject Headings), tagging is completely unstructured and freeform, allowing users to create connections between data anyway they want.

Flickr is not the only site to use tags. Several of the blogs available let users tag their entries (or if you use Blogger, you “label” them – same idea though.). We will discuss tags more in the Social Bookmarking section of this Exploration.

Post to your blog about Flickr. Here are some questions to get you started:
- How could a library use Flickr with staff?
- How could a library use Flickr with patrons?
- Something cool you found on Flickr
- What are some other uses for Flickr?