Thing #5 - Explore Flickr
Ah, Flickr, Flickr, Flickr. Although it seems like I've been a member of Flickr forever, I checked my personal Flickr account and my welcome e-mail from them was sent April 2006.
The beautiful thing about Flickr is the social tagging function. We librarians (especially art librarians) know that access to visual information has always been challenging.
Flickr lets the users add their own descriptors or tags and essentially do the work! You can search your own photos or photos of everyone in the Flickr community. While the precision of the search may be compromised (Searching for a comic character named "Fray" leads to photos of a band called "The Fray," frayed edges, a town called Fray Bentos... You get the idea. "Fishing cat," however, produces pretty relevant results), the recall is pretty good.
As with all of these Web 2.0 applications, practically anyone can now publish material online; meaning, of course that you'll have blurry, ugly snapshots that seem rather worthless on Flickr. On the other hand, you can discover amazing talents. Haiku Garry (see above right) is one such photographer I've discovered. Two other of my favorite Flickr members include: LynnInSingapore and Vision Aerie (Check them out. Their work is amazing!).
I haven't even touched upon how Flickr has allowed me to keep in touch with friends who love to document their lives. I'd like to believe that sites like Flickr and Blogger have made keeping in touch with loved ones more easy. You no longer have to wait for that once a year holiday newsletter. Can these sites also result in people not socializing face to face as often? Sure. But really, how often can you afford to visit that friend living states, even countries away?
The beautiful thing about Flickr is the social tagging function. We librarians (especially art librarians) know that access to visual information has always been challenging.
Flickr lets the users add their own descriptors or tags and essentially do the work! You can search your own photos or photos of everyone in the Flickr community. While the precision of the search may be compromised (Searching for a comic character named "Fray" leads to photos of a band called "The Fray," frayed edges, a town called Fray Bentos... You get the idea. "Fishing cat," however, produces pretty relevant results), the recall is pretty good.
As with all of these Web 2.0 applications, practically anyone can now publish material online; meaning, of course that you'll have blurry, ugly snapshots that seem rather worthless on Flickr. On the other hand, you can discover amazing talents. Haiku Garry (see above right) is one such photographer I've discovered. Two other of my favorite Flickr members include: LynnInSingapore and Vision Aerie (Check them out. Their work is amazing!).
I haven't even touched upon how Flickr has allowed me to keep in touch with friends who love to document their lives. I'd like to believe that sites like Flickr and Blogger have made keeping in touch with loved ones more easy. You no longer have to wait for that once a year holiday newsletter. Can these sites also result in people not socializing face to face as often? Sure. But really, how often can you afford to visit that friend living states, even countries away?
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