Thing 16 - flickr

Flickr. I like it, but am slightly wary about the potential it opens up for bunging sometimes extremely tenuously linked photos into blog posts, presentations, poster etc., just for the sake of it.

Tenuous, by Road Fun, on flickr

See what I mean?! Sometimes words are enough! And even when an image is appropriate, flickr won't always be able to provideexactly what you had in mind, but it's tempting to find something sort of ok and go with that (equally, a search can bring up brilliant and inspirational results that you could never have anticipated!). Once or twice I've searched flickr, eventually found a photo that more or less illustrated what I wanted, and only at the last minute changed my mind and realised that taking my own photo would give me exactly what I wanted, rather than something that was just about ok! I don't want to be lazy and settle for just about ok, and I don't want to get hooked on taking the easy route - benefiting from someone else's creativity instead of using my own. On the other hand, coming back down to planet earth, I realise that there isn't always time to get out your easel and whip up a masterpiece, or even reach for the digital camera, and flickr is a great resource for these occasions. And if your use for the image is illustrative rather than artistic, why spend time taking a photo of something when it's already been done and you could save yourself the effort?

Reinventing the wheel, by Romain Vignes, on flickr

Flickr is good. I see it mostly as something I may use in the future for personal photos. I think for a work presentation or poster I would prefer to use something bespoke. But it's great to know flickr is there if I need it. And as for creative commons - what a great idea!

You may view what follows as a selection of totally unnecessary and completely irrelevant images, but you would be wrong. This post is about flickr; these photos are from flickr. It's perfectly reasonable...

Firstly, something ballet related, just for me...

Ballet shoes, by Jeff Medaugh

Next, a cute animal picture, a must for any blog post surely?...

Link in Profile, by Tobyotter

Finally, a source of inspiration...

Batgirl was a Librarian, by Super Furry Librarian, on flickr

Thing 12 - Social bookmarking tools

As I've so many Things still to explore, and not much time to explore them in, I decided I would just try out one of the social bookmarking tools on offer. I plumped for Delicious, as it seems to be the most popular, and the one I'd heard of! It's a great idea. I'm a heavy user of my browser's 'favourites' facility, so to be able to have a favourites menu that transcends individual PCs and browsers is great!

I wanted to import all of my current favourites into Delicious but, despite trying to follow the instructions on the site, I just couldn't get it to work (I stalled each time at the point of selecting the file to export, repeatedly being told to "enter a valid file name"...). This is a shame, but I think I'll go back to it when I have more time, as I definitely feel it's worthwhile.

I'm really not that excited about the social side of Delicious. I'm not saying that I don't care what other people think generally, but in this context, as with Pushnote, it just doesn't appeal to me to share! I'm concerned with Delicious as a tool for organising and recording, rather than sharing. I do acknowledge that I'd almost certainly come across some useful links if I spent some time browsing the bookmarks of like-minded (either professionally or personally) users, but instinctively I would rather get my tip-offs from other sources.

P.S. It's annoying that there's no standardised tagging language. Commas? Spaces? - it's frustrating when you forget what the rules are for the site you're on!

P.P.S. In preparation for Thing 16, Flickr, I've finally worked out how to use flikr photos on my blog. Here's a ridiculous photo of an orange acting as a bookmark. I know it's only extremely tenuously linked to this post (it's a bookmark, it's delicious), but it might make a few librarians (perhaps my longsuffering colleague?) gasp in horror at the very idea of fruit in such close proximity to a book, and that's always fun!

Orange bookmark, by Jaqian