Thing #5: Explore Flickr

I've been using Flickr for years but I still find new things to do with it, especially when they add new features, which they tend to do on a fairly regular basis.

I started off with Yahoo Photos since I've been with Yahoo for years and only hosted a few photos on Flickr. When Yahoo Photos went kaput they offered to move your photos to a few other image hosting sites and since I already had a Flickr account I sent them all there. I had no problem with the move and it happened really quick, what was nice when you chose Flickr in that instance was that they gave you a few months free of a pro account. I started off with a free account at Flickr, but t once I started blogging regularly I found that I needed more than the free 200 photos that Flickr will show on a free account.

I now have all the photos that I use for my blogs on Flickr. I also use Flickr to share photos with my family. When my brother was in Iraq he would send photos and I would post them on my Flickr account so that all of my family could see them in one place instead of having to send multiple emails with bulky photo attachments. I take hundreds of photos every month and I post most of them to Flickr...most of them public, but a select few for friends and family only. I back up my photos on CD every month, but it's nice that Flickr is a nicely kept archive for me--instead of having to dig through boxes of photos I can browse them on Flickr.

As most of you know by now the library has a paid Flickr account. We use it for a multitude of things.

• Displays - books, seasonal (Halloween, Christmas, Dia de los Muertos), Go Spurs Go (we got a shout out from one of the Spurs organizations for a photo in this set), Reading Maps (launched after staff attended a presentation that mentioned it)


• Staff Recommendation - compiled from the library's electronic newsletter BookMarks!


• DIY Library - this set is a particularly fun one, as what we ask people to do is take a picture of something they have created from utilizing library materials.


• Program Publicity - this set contains flyers for library events. What I usually do is take a screen capture of documents that are sent to me and load them up to Flickr. A recent success with this was the Knit Out program. A local craft group linked to the image from a forum that they use.


• Exhibits - this came in handy for the Winds of Words and War exhibit

I like to utilize the sets and collections that Flickr provides. In the library Flickr account each branch has it's own set, as well as some departments (Texana, Little Read Wagon), services (Volunteers, Outreach) and age groups (Teen Services and Children Services). Our special events also get their own sets. What I've been doing recently is using the slideshow feature of Flickr to showcase photos of particular events in Hispanic Heritage and Summer Reading.

For eachof these photos we have a set of 7-8 tags that get added to each picture. Most of you email your photos into the account and the tags get added automatically. We created another Flickr account, this one free, to allow staff to add tags and comments.

One of the third party sites that helps me to better utilize Flickr is Picnik. It allows me to edit any photo that I have uploaded to flickr. I mainly use it to crop and to lighten up photos.

I really like the archive function in Flickr. If the date and time are set correctly on your camera, you can step back and forwards in time as you wish. I like to look at stats and see which of my photos are being looked at and from where--of course I also like to look at how flickr arranges them by interestingness. :D

I belong to a few groups, but I don't submit photos that often. The library account also belongs to a group or too, but many photos don't get submitted. This is one way to drum up views to your photos if you are interested in that kind of thing.