Photosharing on the web.

There are many photosharing outlets on the web. Perhaps the best known is flickr. Will Richardson devotes an entire chapter of his book : Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms to flickr. Flickr hosts more than 3.6 billion photos on their site, and has recently allowed members to post short videos. The interesting thing about Flickr is that it allows your viewers to be interactive with you and your photos. They can add tags and notes to the photos (About Flickr).

Flickr is great because the volume of photos available means that there will always be a photo that fits your needs, however, there are restictions on how these photos can be used. That is why a site like creative commons is so useful. Creative commons allows users to dictate how their photos, writings, videos, music etc. will be licensed. This allows the users to control how their work will be used by others (About Creative Commons). Many flickr members have chosen to display their photos under a creative commons licensing agreement to remain in control of their photos and allow others to use them for creative purposes. Creative commons gives more freedom and flexibility to the users, while allowing the owners to maintain the licensing of their work. Because of this freedom, creative commons is a great asset to libraries. Users must still be aware of the licensing agreements, however, the images, videos, music etc. can be used legally within copyright rules.

I have used the creative commons website many times to find images to use in the library I worked in. The business library at the University of Alberta has a television monitor that displays images, statistics and useful information for users of the library. I was often asked to find images to display relating to certain holidays such as halloween or St. Patricks Day. The best place to go for images was creative commons since we could use these images without repercussions. While creative commons does not have the same volume of images that flickr does, I found that their selection of images was sufficient for what I needed it for in the library.

Academic libraries can use photosharing websites as a way of collecting photos for use, as well as posting photos for others to view, but public and school libraries could run into some trouble with the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIP) if they posted photos of minors without consent. FOIP's goal is to protect the personal information of individuals. Personal information is information about a identifiable individual. If a public or school library is going to be involved in photosharing it is important that they are aware of FOIP regulations before engaging in these activities.

Besides using photos just to photoshare, there are many other uses for photos in schools. A really good idea is for kids to find a picture, or take one of their own, then use it as a writing prompt (Mister Teacher). This site provides good suggestions for sites for children to visit to find photos. My favourite is kidsclick. The site provides lists of websites that would be useful for finding pictures of art, space, animals and history. All of the links are to professional and well-respected institutions, so children are accessing some of the best possible photos for the topic.

While professionally I have used creative commons very often, for photosharing my personal photos I use facebook or photobucket. I used photobucket before flickr was big, as a way to ensure that I did not lose my photos when I switched to my new computer. I rarely use photobucket anymore, instead I post almost all of my pictures onto facebook. There are many drawbacks to doing this, mainly once the photos are posted they become the property of facebook and facebook has the right to use these photos however they want. This is a major concern for me, but facebook is the easiest way for me to share pictures with my friends. Many of my friends are on facebook, so it is the quickest way for me to share my photos with them. Though the fact that facebook owns my photos once I post them really bothers me, their privacy settings are a major bonus. I like that I can filter out who can view my photos.

While right now facebook is the easiest way for me to maintain and share my photos, flickr seems like a very good way to maintain my photos. They have so many great features, such as allowing users to tag photos so that other users can find photos easier. I also really like that flickr allows its users to post photos under a licensing agreement with creative commons.