Five uses of Flickr (or any photo sharing web site)

We think of sharing ordinary photos on a photo sharing web site, but what else can you do with them?

• Post screen shots of presentations. I can hear you say "why????"  For a conference where participants heavily use tagging and photo sharing, posting screen shots is a way of promoting your talk ahead of time.  You can also then refer to the screen shot in your blog, wiki, etc. and draw people to it that way. 
  

• Post information that you want people to review or comment on.  One person who has done this well is Michael Habib, who posted various version of this graphic in Flickr, with links to his blog post about them.  With the combination of the graphic and blog post, he was able to solicit input from people and refine his thinking.

• Post photos to use for instruction (formally or informally).  These may be screen shots or photos that you want to incorporate in a presentation or maybe you want to use a photo sharing site slide show as your presentation!

  By the way, one area being documented via photos are library signage.  Every sign provides a teachable moment.

• Store photos that you want to use on your organization's web site, then use a widget to display those photos. Flickr has badges that you can place on your web site that will use photos you've stored in Flickr.  (Likely other services has the same feature.)  This is a great way of making a site more dynamic.  [See photos from the SLA Annual Conference in Denver below as an example of what a widget can do.]

www.flickr.com More Flickr photos tagged with sla2007

• Search photos for ideas.  For example, are you considering remodeling your library?  Why not search the photos to see how other libraries are setup and to gather ideas (e.g., The Libraries and Librarians Pool)?  Since you can message people who post photos in the services, you can then ask questions to help clarify your thinking.

Don't have a photo sharing account?  Many are free and they are very easy to use.  Now that you know more about what you can do, why not give them a try?!

BTW -- If you can think of another use, please leave a comment and share it with all of us!

Comments

[Carl]

Some photo sharing sites such as KoffeePhoto also provide for online photo backup.

[Jenny Reiswig]

Just ran across this today... as you brainstorm about other ways you can use Flickr, it is worth remembering this from Flickr's Community Guidelines which all members agree to follow when they sign up:
"Don’t use Flickr for commercial purposes.
Flickr is for personal use only. If we find you selling products, services, or yourself through your photostream, we will terminate your account."
There's certainly lots of non-personal library stuff in Flickr - mine included - and so far I don't know of any libraries that have been cut off. But it's worth tucking away in the back of your mind.

[Jill Hurst-Wahl]

Jenny, good point. I don't think any of the uses I've seen, though, are "selling". We document what we do (or what we're going to do). Perhaps this is a fine line. Dunno. But you're right...we need to recognize that there is a line and be aware that we might cross it. Thanks!