23 Things #5 & #6

#5 of the 23 things is "Explore Flickr and learn about this popular image hosting site." I created a Flickr account for the first time. I have used the site in the past to find inspiration for library displays (many libraries add Flickr photo stream widgets to their websites, after uploading pictures taken around the library, including photos of displays, programs, et cetera). I found an interesting Flickr group: the 365 Library Days Project Each participant of this group represents a library and attempts to upload (over the course of one year) at least 365 pictures that were taken in or around their libraries...the group's creator writes: "Imagine what a valuable historic document you could create for your library with this project! And while you're at it, at the end of your year commitment, you could contact your local newspaper and tell them about the project, where they could do a story and print selected pictures that you took over the year. Such a substantive advocacy project! It would demonstrate in very real ways, ways that get lost to many people in your community, that you and your library are doing important work every day of the year!" I think it is a great idea. My favorite 365 Library Days Project photo was of a library's garden gnome. I love it! How does that library manage to prevent neighborhood youth from stealing it though?! View the picture here: Project Earth 365, Day 179.

I also found this group: Book Displays in Libraries or Anywhere
There are 191 members and over a thousand photos. What a great way to get ideas for a book display at your own library.

#6 (in the 23 Things program) asks us to discover some Flickr mashups (APIs--application programming interfaces--that use Flickr images) and 3rd party tools. Here is a link to a list of hundreds of Flickr mashups: 481 Mashups An interesting mashup that I discovered was Cromomulator. This site pulls together news, videos, blog posts, and photos from Flickr, about each of the top 40 Google searches (as tracked by Google Hot Trends). The site is updated every 3 hours. I clicked on Bears vs Lions (#32 on the list) on October 4th. Some photos of the most recent NFL game between the two teams were included (from Flickr)---however, some were photos of kids playing soccer! That is one problem with tagging...no authority control.