Week 3: Photos & Images

                Thing #6: Explore Flickr

FLICKR

                http://www.flickr.com/

                Did you ever take a photograph of something, wait for it to be developed, pick it up, pay for it, and show it to a family member or friend, just to have that other person steal it when you aren’t looking? Well, I have, and it’s annoying. So now, thanks to Flickr you can set up a free account, post all your digital or scanned photos and share them with friends and relatives over the Internet! Flickr is a great way to share single photos (which they call a Photostream), or make labeled Sets. You can also control who gets to print or share your pictures with others, and whether or not your account is searchable. Like other social networking sites, businesses and libraries also use Flickr to display their photos.

For example, the NOPL locations have a Flickr page for program pictures at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/noplibrary/

Fayetteville Free Library also uses Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ma1ja/

                Thing #7: Explore Picasa

PICASA

                http://picasa.google.com/

                Picasa is a Google product that’s similar to Flickr, except it’s software you download to your computer rather than using exclusively over the Internet. One of the biggest differences is that as soon as you download Picasa, it searches for all the photos on your computer and brings them into the program. Then every time you open the program, it pulls in the newest photos you’ve saved to your computer and puts them in your Picasa album. This doesn’t mean it automatically puts them on the Internet; that’s a separate step you have to do, but it tries to organize them all on your computer. Picasa also makes some odd little folders on its own, for example it pulls out all the faces from your photos and makes a file of just face shots. Picasa also gives you the option to edit photos and make slideshows.

                Some libraries use Picasa for publicity photos, including

DeWitt Community Library: http://picasaweb.google.com/dcommuni

Manlius Library: http://picasaweb.google.com/106106771347406301503

                Thing #8: Wordles and Pic Lits

WORDLE

                http://www.wordle.net/

                This Web 2.0 tool creates word clouds from text sources. It makes a kind of picture from the words, emphasizing those that appear most often in the text. Wordles work two ways: you can either copy and paste a bunch of text into a box, or copy and paste the Web address of a blog and create the Wordle that way. Often, the word pictures created by Wordle end up being little poems. Look at some examples here: http://www.wordle.net/gallery?start=4692897 . Once you’ve pasted the text, you can manipulate the colors and style of the Wordle before it’s finished. Then you can share it in the Wordle Gallery or save it for yourself.

PIC LITS

                http://www.piclits.com/

                Pic Lits gives you a photograph, and then you can either drag and drop words onto it or write your own phrases to put on the picture. It’s a sort of Internet word and picture collage. When you’re finished, you can share it or add it to your blog, or just save it for yourself. Look at some examples here: http://www.piclits.com/gallery.aspx

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