A Flickr of Hope

There's a flickr of hope for those individuals, organizations, and libraries who want to share their photos with others on the internet. The sharing of photos can be a wonderful way to let others know what is happening, either in one's personal life or in an organization. For libraries, sharing photos can serve many purposes. It can be a method for promoting services, programs, activities, and events. It can be a way to introduce your staff and board to the public. It can be a repository where photos can be kept for historical archival purposes. The website is Flickr.com. Flickr is one of the earliest Web 2.0 applications created as a site where users can share photographs. Flickr accounts are very easy to set up, and very easy to use. One of the neatest things is the ability to tag (label) each photograph which aids in the organizational and retrieval process. Users can create sets (or albums) of photographs organized on a certain theme. A photo can belong to one or many sets. There are free accounts available as well as pro accounts which offer unlimited storage space for a very reasonable $25 a year. There is a very comprehensive description of Flickr on Wikipedia. Many, many libraries are using Flickr, from the largest library in the nation, the Library of Congress, to small libraries such as Riverdale, Illinois and Chicago Ridge, Illinois. Visiting these sites will give new Flickr users insipiration and hopefully ideas to use on their own sites.