Thing #5: Explore Flickr

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 last few 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.

Read 7 Things You Should Know About Flickr

As you know (or should know) not all Google Images are copyright-friendly. You do not have the rights to use all visuals found there. That is also true with Flickr photos in the overall collection.

However, the folks at Flickr have arranged separate collections based on the copyright-friendly Creative Commons rules. The photos found here can be downloaded and used by you, a visitor to the site.

For this discovery exercise:
1.Take a good look at Flickr and discover what this site has to offer.
Find out how tags work, what groups are, and all the neat things that people and other libraries are using Flickr for.

2. Visit the Flickr Creative Commons site and explore what kinds of photos you could you use for your library or classroom. Do a search using a keyword or two from your subject or curriculum.
Save a photo to your hard drive (in My Pictures is best). Add that photo to your #5 blog posting that interests you.
Note: Do not use the Search box found on the top right side--it takes you to the general collection where not all photos are copyright friendly. Here is some help in downloading photos from the site.

3. Write about what you found. Be sure and put Thing 5 as part of your post title.

Reminder: Separate post for each Thing. Please do not combine Things.