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Tuesday, 23 August 2011

Thing 16: Flickr'ing in and out of focus

A suitably reflective AND classical image,
from Flickr. Who could ask for more?
Photo by nerissa's ring
Yes, yet again, I'm using reflection week to catch up on all the Things that just keep coming...but at least this promises to be a very pretty post, peppered with the pickings from this week's tool: Flickr.

The idea of Flickr is an excellent one, and to have access to the work of so many enthusiastic artists, both amateur and professional, in one place is a boon for would-be library marketers and bloggers alike.

Practically, however, I have to admit that I didn't find Flickr immediately easy to use. I find it cumbersome to have to go onto advanced search to find CC images, when another little drop-down box next to a simple search box would be so easy. In fact, something like that appears when you initially click on "search", allowing you to limit your search to "The Commons", which turns out not to be anything to do with Creative Commons, as far as I can tell (The Commons is very limited and has very little modern material in it...I'm still yet to discover what it actually is!)

Best. Bookend. Ever. Photo by Enokson
In any case, the lovely Annie helped me via Twitter, and I've been liberally splattering Flickr images on my blog since. I also like the way that some people use Flickr as a kind of photo blog, particularly some librarians such as Enokson, whose cheerful and incredibly creative library displays have probably inspired many a school (or even academic) librarian. The advantages of using Flickr rather than a photo blog are that you can set clear restrictions and stipulations on your creations, and that you can organise the photos into "sets" and "collections" in a more coherent manner. Admittedly you could tag images in a photo blog, but the way in which Flickr more closely resembles a photo album feels somehow more professional.

I shall leave you, not with any kind of reflection by myself whatsoever, but with something far more eloquent; a scene taken in the city of Nagasaki by my very talented, Japan-loving, Assam-drinking friend, Moe.
An eye-catching reflection in Nagasaki.
Image (reproduced with permission) by Zebra Love 79

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6 comments:

  1. Annie Gleeson24 August 2011 at 09:18

    Found the bit on Flickr where it tells you what the Commons is! It's collections from public photo archives. http://www.flickr.com/commons/

    Also coincidentally one of the featured blog posts on the CILIP weekly email this week was this post by a special collections librarian on putting their photo archives on (in?) the Commons. http://alisoncullingford.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/my-friend-flickr/

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  2. Becky24 August 2011 at 15:41

    Ah, well found! And thanks for the extra info :)

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  3. Jenny25 August 2011 at 08:52

    Becky, I can't seem to work out how to use flickr images in my blog (hence too many ridiculous home-made drawings)! When I paste the URL into Blogger it tells me it can't find the photo. What's your approach, or do you know of any helpful online instructions?

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  4. Becky25 August 2011 at 11:21

    Hey Jenny - I tried to add an image your way and had the same problem, it must be a bug in Blogger. I usually add photos one of two ways:

    1. The way described in the Flickr blog post, whereby you right-click on the image, then on "Medium 500", and you can save the image to the computer to uplaod it that way.
    2. Use lightshot to grab it that way (is this dodgy? I don't know - it's a lot quicker and of course, I only do it with CC images)

    Hope that helps :)

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  5. Becky25 August 2011 at 12:15

    Allllllso, there is the method that attaches the CC license tag to it - Ange Fitzpatrick is in the process of doing a write-up on it for her blog, so keep an eye out for it!

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  6. Annie Gleeson25 August 2011 at 15:16

    Are you pasting the url from the address bar? If so I don't think that's a Blogger bug, to get the url of the actual image itself (as opposed to the url of the page with all the sizes) you need to right click on the image and then click "copy image location". I think it's the same with Lightshot, if you paste the address bar url it won't work, but copying the image location does!

    (Jenny, I love your home-made drawings though!)

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