Flickr: #4

I was excited to see that flickr is one of the 23 Things, as I've been a part of the flickr community since 2005. The ability to tag photos with descriptive keywords and file the images into sets is excellent, and the interface for uploading and organizing images is attractive and intuitive. I have so much love for flickr! In fact, if I'm allowed a bragging moment, I must mention that one of my photos was even ranked among the top 10 most interesting images on flickr at one point. Ah, my little moment of Internet fame! Here's a link to my photostream:


I credit flickr for motivating me to improve my photography skills. I'm a complete amateur and have never taken a photography class, but I've been really inspired by the high quality photography posted to flickr and the very active community there. I won't lie-- I love getting comments on the photos I post. I think the community aspect is a great motivator, and probably a major factor in flickr's incredible popularity. People in general like to contribute and communicate-- that's really what Web 2.0 is all about, right?

In the interest of constantly striving to improve my photography skills, I like joining groups dedicated a particular photographic theme, such as The Magic Hour. This group encourages its members to post photos featuring the beautiful golden light that occurs about an hour before sunset and an hour after sunrise. Before joining flickr, I never gave much thought to trying to capture a specific type of light in my photographs, but this group has motivated me to purposefully take walks about an hour before sunset to see what I can snap and share.

I'm also a member of the Libraries and Librarians group, partly to observe how libraries are using flickr for professional reasons and partly because I love to be a library tourist and see different libraries all over the world. In browsing this community, the many photographic library tours and pictures of library events demonstrate how libraries can use flickr to reach out to their patrons and promote their resources and services. On my latest visit to this group, the Pierce County Library's flickr account happened to catch my eye. This library is participating in another library-themed flickr group: 365 Library Days Project, in which libraries are encouraged to post one picture of their library every day for a year. I like Pierce County Library's creative approach in highlighting the variety of services and service points within the library through their daily photo-- they're creating a very nice tool for outreach and marketing.

I haven't yet used flickr in a professional capacity, but I'm looking forward to doing so. I think there's huge potential for libraries to interact with their patrons and other libraries by creating a presence in this online community.