flickr fun

Flickr is an image and video hosting website. It allows people to upload, edit, group, and share your photos.
By selecting an uploaded photo and clicking on edit, you can get connected to picnik which allows you to add effects, resize, whiten teeth, add a border, give someone a mustache, and do so much more with your photos. Then save the photo and share it with the whole flickr community or just with your family and friends. Your family and friends can then make comments to your photos as well as sharing their photos with you. This is an awesome feature that allows your community to see your images without having to send them to everyone individually.
To make things easier for them to view your photos, you can make sets and label them so that you can direct people to the photos they may want to see. Click and drag photos to create the groups and then play them as a slide show.
If you have a picture that you really like then you can pay to make a calendar, custom cards, a photo album, or just prints. The basic package in flickr is free and allows up to 100MB of image storage per month, so there is no reason to miss out on all the fun you could have creating with your photos and video. With this link you can check out flickr for free, http://www.flickr.com/tour
If you find that flickr is as awesome as it sounds, you can also sign up for a premium package that would allow additional effects and unlimited image storage.
All too often at the library a patron's time runs down and they frantically try to get more time because they don't want to lose their work and I think that tools like flickr and googledocs allow patrons to save their information without having to buy a jump drive or disc. Flickr also allows patrons to view their photos no matter where they are (providing there is a computer) even if they forgot their image storage device.
A lot of patrons are using flickr and if a librarian is aware of flickr, when a patron asks about it the librarian would possibly be able to help. Often times the idea of librarian brings to mind the image of a staunch older woman with glasses and an affinity to shush people. If librarians stay up to date on technology then they are able to address the public's need and breaks that old stereotype of keeper of the books.



References:

Yahoo Inc. (2010)Tour of flickr. Retrieved from www.flickr.com/tour/

Yahoo! (2010) What is flickr? Retrieved from http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/widgets/widget/flickr/flickr-03.html

Nations, D. About.com Guide. (2005) What is flickr? Retrieved from: http://webtrends.about.com/od/profile1/fr/what-is-Flickr.htm