IL 2006: Flickr & Libaries

IL 2006: Flickr & Libaries
Michael Porter and Michael Sauers (and three virtual guests)

IL2006

Michcael Porter begain with a brief overview of how Flickr works.  In brief, you post photos, tag them, and post and read comments.  He did a demo of how the site works--viewing your photo stream, the detailed webpage for each photo, which includes the tags and comments for the photo.  Who is using Flickr?  Many people in the room raised their hands saying that their libraries are using Flickr already: ACPL, Ada Community Library, ALA, Coloradio College, Georgia State University, National Library of Belarus, the list goes on and on.   Michael also showed how libraries used the ALA software to create READ posters to create images of well-known local people with their favorite books. 

Flickr also has different groups with various interests--there is a Librarians' Desk group, Libraries and Librarians Group.  Anything you're interested in, there is probably a community on Flickr for it.  Michael discussed the Libraries and Librarians Group at length.  There are currently over 5,500 images with over 950 members.  The group has suggested tagging (a controlled vocabulary!!!).  Michael also showed us the tag cloud for the group.  Groups also include discussion spaces as well, which often expand beyond Flickr-related topics.

Lluisa Nunez, from the Universitat de Barcelona, gave a virtual presentation in absentia via audio that Michael played for us.  She entered Flickr and became part of the Libraries and Librarians Group.   She talked about tagging for the group--geographic location, type of activity, type of library, and more.  She discussed Geobloggers--a way to tag your photos with geo data, which then places your photo on the map with some special scripts.  There is a GeoTagging Flickr group, a Flickr page by Russell Sayers with some info on geo tagging, Yuan.cc maps, and FlickrMaps.  (Sarah's note: This was a fabulous use of a virtual presentation--great audio content, very clear, set to a slide show as well).

Tony Boston, from the National Library of Australia, discussed the Picture Australia project which takes images that people upload to their Flickr pool, and tags them to make them findable.  They use the Flickr API to do a weekly harvest to get info about the photos that have been uploaded to the Picture Australia pool in that time period.  They match Flickr tags up to Dublin Core fields.  Each Flickr XML element matches up with a Dublin Core element, and the info transfer is made through an Excel spreadsheet (WOW!).  The objectives of this service were to increase the number of cnotemporary images in the project and to engage with new audiences.

Fiona Hooton, also from the National Library of Australia, told us that the project currently includes 1.2 million images and artifacts...largely historical content.  Over 1 million searches and 11 million page views happened in 2005 on Picture Australia.  Celebrities promoted the project.  On Australia Day in 2006, users were encouraged to upload their photos of the event, which kick-started the service.  The project has increased the public's awareness of the national library.  Not only contemporary photos are being uploaded, but people's own collections of historical photos are being uploaded as well.  The National Library always asks permission from users to use their photos in their project, and lets them know when they are live.  The project is presented in the user environment directly, not asking users to come to the library. 

Michael Sauers closed out the session by discussing fun things to do with Flickr, many of which can be found on fd's Flickr Toys.
1) Fun Flickr Groups: Librarians with Giant Calculators, the Springfield Public Library (librarian Simpsons characters), Nancy Pearl Librarian Action Figure pool, Jail Finds (things prison librarians find stuffed into prison library books), Librarian Trading Cards, Library Signage Group,  Library Bags.
2) Wright Library does photos of their programs
3) Westmont Public LIbrary takes photos of a shelf of face-out new books, and then adds notes to each book cover with title and author that links back to the OPAC. (Sarah's Note: What a FABULOUS idea!!!)
4) Colr Pickr: lets you pick and search for photos by a particular color in Flickr
5) Retrievr: lets you search by sketch--draw it, and see similar photos to your drawing
6) FlickrLeech: thumbnails of images
7) FlickrGraph: lets you see who has who as contacts and it branches out like a family tree
8) Clockr: tells you the current time using Flickr photographs of numbers
9) Spell with Flickr: takes each letter separately in a ransom-note-like looking letter