#7 Explore Flickr and Picnik

• Watch this video: Online Photo Sharing in Plain English [2:50]

Photo sharing websites have been around since the 90s, but it took a small startup site called Flickr to catapult the idea of "sharing" into a full blown online community. Within the past couple of years, Flickr has become the fastest growing photo sharing site on the web and is known as one of the first websites to use keyword "tags" to create associations and connections between photos and users of the site.

One can also search all those pictures for pictures of a certain color, geo-tagged location, taken by a certain camera model, taken during a certain time period, creative commons or copyright status, and/or type of shot (macro, portrait, etc.). One of my favorites is the Flickr map search. I often use this to help patrons find pictures of places all over the world.

Sidenote: I was able to make the sign above with this online letter finding tool.

Picnik is an online image editing site that works well with image hosting sites like Flickr or uploading pictures straight from your computer. With Picnik you can adjust your colors contrast, sizes, and create new images using some of their different effects. You don't have to sign up if you don't want to and it's all free.

For this discovery exercise, you are asked to take a good look at Flickr and Picnik and discover what these sites have to offer. You will find out how tags work, what groups are, and all the neat things that people and other libraries (additional libraries listed here) are using Flickr for.

Discovery Resources:
Take a look at some of these resources to learn more about Flickr and Picnik

• Flickr Learn More tour (6 steps)
• Mediamazine Flickr Tutorials
• Popular tags or Interesting pictures taken in the Last 7 days
• Flickr Services (3rd party applications & mashups)
• Picnik FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

Discovery Exercises:

Find Stuff:
In this exercise you're going to see what Flickr has to offer and see what other people are doing with it.

• Go to Flickr and search for things like "libraries" or some other interest you may have. If you find something really interesting, post a comment about it.
  
  
• Go to Flickr/maps and search for your hometown or some place you would like to go. If you find something noteworthy, tell us about it in a comment.
  
  
• If your branch has a digital camera or if you have access to a personal camera, locate the camera brand and model #. Then search for pictures posted taken with that camera model. You can search for macro, portrait, landscape, etc. If you find an amazing picture, post a comment on it.

Check out some of these library and librarian flickr accounts to see what fellow librarians are doing:

• crashsolo
• gwinnettcountypubliclibrary
• libraryman
• Pierce County Library
• westmontlibrary

Do Stuff:
In this exercise you'll take a couple of pictures of things and people/events in your library and make a Flickr account to host them. For the more adventurous, you'll then edit these photos using free online editing at www.picnik.com.

• Use a digital camera to take a picture of something (some object) in your library. It can be a picture of a piece of art, some furniture, a meeting room, etc.
  
  
• Take a picture of staff or an event in the library you want to share. Remember, these pictures will be made public for the whole world!
  
  
• Create a Free account in Flickr.
  
  
• Upload your two pictures to your new Flickr account and tag at least one of the images "wcpll20" and mark it public. If you want, post a comment about your photo and experience.
  
  
• Once people start uploading their pictures and tagging them with "wcpll20," you'll be able to see other people's photos by searching for "wcpll20" at Flickr.
  
  
• A quick word about photo posting etiquette - When posting identifiable photos of other people (especially minors) is it advisable to get the person's permission before posting their photo in a publicly accessible place like Flickr. Never upload pictures that weren't taken by you (unless you have the photographer's consent) and always give credit when you include photos taken by someone else in your blog.

For the more adventurous:

• Go to Picnik and upload one of your pictures.
  
  
• Play around with the automatic contrast and colors.
  
  
• Play around with the effects under the "Create" tab.
  
  
• Save your new photo and post it to Flickr for all to see your graphic genius!

To get credit for this week: At a minimum, post a comment telling us about something interesting you found at Flickr. Hopefully many of you will have access to a digital camera and will be able to upload photos to Flickr and tell us all about them!

[Update 2/28: At least a couple of people uploaded and tagged their photos with wcpll20, but they don't up when you search for this tag. Jason contacted flickr and learned that you have to have at least 5 photos in your account for them to be available in searches. ]