Sharing images ...

Flickr

I have just looked at Flickr for the first time and this seems to be an easier way to view pictures from family and friends. One friend often sends me pictures attached to her emails and these take forever to save (so I can scan for viruses) and then open to look at.

Mosman Library appears to use flickr as a main form of advertisement for it's promotional events, new services and acquisitions. Sadly, when I typed in the name of my workplace there was very little there. However, there were some pictures of our old library's demolition uploaded by a work colleague.

There were even some pictures from members of the public. One picture "067" uploaded by Naku' on 26/10/09 comes with the comment:

"Study study study study
at the Chatswood Library
stuffy, hot, noisy".

Other interesting (and some scary) pictures were discovered when I typed in - dogs and wigs (or similar variations) when i was exploring non-library related pictures.

When looking at some flickr groups I came across a library related one called "Library interiors". One picture "Mortlock Library" which had been uploaded to the group pool that caught my eye was uploaded by dscreativ on 16th July 2010. It is of the Mortlock Library (one wing of the State Library of South Australia) and you can visit this by going to:

http://www.flickr.com/ and typing in groups. This opens up another search screen and if you click on the groups tab and then type in library interiors in the search field and then click on this group in the results list you can then type in Mortlock library to see these pictures.

I would have added a copy here but discovered just as I was about to that it was an "all rights reserved" picture. This is probably the easily forgotten detail about pictures on photo sharing sites like flickr. Anyone can see the pictures but unless you check out the fine print what you might assume anyone can copy could be wrong. For that reason I hesitate to use anything submitted by anyone else as the ramifications could be costly..

In fact after much searching there seems to be very few pictures that aren't "all rights reserved"!

Initial thoughts on being social ...

Learning 2.0 - my first steps towards exploring the online world that exists beyond searching the internet for information and sending emails.

As anyone with the ability to read, watch or listen to what's being printed, screened or talked about, I am aware that there is more out there. However, most of these new ways of communicating such as through twittering, youtube or via facebook only really seem to be a platform for advising the world what one was doing, seeing, wearing, etc.

Thoughts which once would have been kept private or only shared with a close circle of friends now seemed to be up for public consumption and broadcast to the world. Everyone from well-known public figures to the stranger in the street wanted you to know and know everything!

As a person who values their privacy and enjoys moments of quiet contemplation without someone else discussing and debating the ins and outs of such thoughts this was definitely not something I personally wanted to embrace.

So what did I expect to learn from the State Libraries NSW Public Libraries Learning 2.0 program?

Well, after reading the course agenda I can see that there are other ways of using these social communication tools. Information which once would have only been available in a printed format such as instructions on how to use your new DVD recorder could now be accessed via youtube in an instructional video. This different manner of providing information enabled those who needed to know, to understand, what might not have been fully grasped previously. For that I am prepared to put aside my reservations over what I have already seen and think I know.

Learning 2.0's program provides a guided format in which to learn and helps one to explore the vast array of possible activities and the steps involved in easily digestible learning blocks. What seems so very overwhelming when first contemplated now appears achievable..