#7 Digital Archives

In this digital age, many libraries are taking items from their archives and digitizing them – scanning or recording them and saving them in a format accessible on a computer or via the Internet. Many libraries are starting digital collections which are freely accessible from their websites. These collections may include photographs, postcards, manuscripts, sound recordings, films, and a wide variety of other source material.

There are several advantages to having a digital collection. One is that, like other online resources, items in a digital collection can be made available 24-7 (not limited to the library’s hours of operation) and they are accessible to anyone anywhere (not just people who are able to visit your library in person). Another advantage is that the images can be easily viewed by multiple patrons without fear of damaging the original artifact by handling, allowing the original to be preserved in its current state.

Discovery Resources
Among the largest digital collections is the Library of Congress American Memory collection. This collection incorporates “written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps and sheet music that document the American experience. It is a digital record of American history and creativity.” It includes more than 9 million items.

Closer to home, we can find the Tennessee Virtual Archive (TeVA) and the Nashville Public Library Digital Collection.

The Tennessee State Library and Archives created TeVA as a digital repository of Tennessee history and culture. Its stated mission is to bring electronic versions of the state’s rich collections to a wider audience. TeVA provides an array of historical records, photographs, documents, maps, postcards, film, audio and other original materials. This digital collection includes historical postcards from Tennessee, photos of Rutherford County schools from the 1920s, photos of Appalachian people from the 1930s, photos of steamboats and river-related work from the 1920s, photos from WWI, a vast collection of American sheet music, and more. You can browse any of several individual collections, or search the whole collection by keyword. Some of the collections also offer online indexes or finding aids.

Nashville Public Library’s digital collection culls materials from the library’s Special Collection Division. Materials available include photographs, postcards, maps, oral histories, and ephemera. Materials are currently available in six categories: Capitol City, Architecture, Military History, Civil Rights, Performing Arts, and Business. Like TeVA, you can browse through any specific collection, or conduct a keyword search. The library also offers a search guide for Tips on Searching Digital Collections.

Discovery Exercise

• Spend a little time exploring TeVA or the Nashville Public Library’s digital collection.
• Create a blog post that includes an image from the collection, and tell us what about that image interested you.

#6 More Flickr Fun

Like many web 2.0 sites, Flickr has encouraged other people to build their own online applications using images found on the site.

Through the use of APIs (application programming interfaces), many people have created third party tools and mashups* that use Flickr images.

Here are a sampling of a few …

• Flickr Color Pickr - lets you find public photos in Flickr that match a specific color.
• Spell With Flickr – lets you make words with random images of letters (or numbers), as shown above.
• Retrievr– you sketch an image; it finds photos on Flickr that resemble your sketch.
  Discover more mashups, web apps, and Flickr tools.
  

Discovery Exercise
Your discovery exercise for this “thing” is to:

1. Explore some of the fun Flickr mashups and 3rd party tools that are out there.
2. Create a blog post about one that intrigues you.

FD’s Flickr Toys has a lot of mashups, including a make your own motivational poster, as shown here. They also offer a Trading Card Maker. And there’s a ton of librarians out there who have created their own Librarian Trading Card. So have some fun discovering and exploring some neat little apps. And if you're up to the challenge while you’re at it, why not create a trading card of your own.

*Mashup note: Wikipedia offers some great articles that explain mashups. Basically, they are hybrid web applications that take features from one application (like Flickr) and mash it up with another (like a map), getting you a new application (like Trippermap).

#5 Exploring Flickr

Photo sharing websites have been around since the 1990s, but it took a small startup site called Flickr to catapult the idea of "sharing" into a full blown online community. Over the past couple of years, Flickr has become the fastest growing photo sharing site on the web and is known as one of the first websites to use keyword "tags" to create associations and connections between photos and users of the site. (We'll learn more about tags in week 6.) For this discovery exercise, you are asked to take a good look at Flickr and discover what this site has to offer. Find out how tags work, what groups are, and all the neat things that people and other libraries are using Flickr for.

Discovery Resources

• Flickr Learn More tour (6 steps)
  
• Mediamazine Flickr Tutorials
  
• Flickr: Popular tags
  
• Interesting- Last 7 days
  
• Flickr Services (3rd party applications & mashups; find out more about this in Thing #6)
  

For more information, we suggest:

1. Listen to the PLCMC podcast about about this thing.


2. The Newbie's Guide to Flickr. Pay particular attention to terms like Tags, Sets, and Collections. You may also want to refer back to this page as you take Flickr out for a spin.


3. Flickr for Librarians. Keep these ideas in the back of your head as you start to explore Flickr's different features.

Discovery Exercise
In this discovery exercise, you have two options…

a. Take a good look around Flickr and discover an interesting image that you want to blog about. Be sure to include either a link to the image or, if you create a Flickr account, you can use Flickr's blogging tool to add the image in your post. Another option you have for including images in your post is to use Blogger's photo upload tool. While you're at Flickr, be sure to search for "LPLS" to see the photos from our library system that have been posted.

-- OR --

b. Add a photo to the LPLS Flickr account using the following steps:

1. Log into Flickr using the LPLS account. Check your email this week for the LPLS user name and password. If you need help at this time, refer to the Flickr FAQ page or The Newbie’s Guide for assistance.


2. Take a look at the photos your coworkers have already posted online.


3. We've made a selection of photos available on our library network. You can find them on the Everyone network drive, in Administration/23 Things Photos. Pick one of the photos in this folder (one that hasn’t already been posted) and upload it to Flickr. Add the tag "LPLS," along with one or more other tags and a brief description (if you like).


4. In your blog, be sure to include either a link to the image or, if you create a Flickr account, you can use Flickr's blogging tool to add the image in your post. Another option you have for including images in your blog post is to use Blogger's photo upload tool.


5. Please note: if you use the Flickr "Blog This" tool, you must be sure to remove your blog from the list of blogs stored on the LPLS Flickr account, after you have added the photo to you blog. You must complete this step, in order for your coworkers to also be able to use this account.

So go ahead, explore the site and have some Flickr photo fun!

Discover More
There are several other photo hosting and sharing sites available online. A few examples are Photobucket, Picasa Web Albums, Shutterfly, Snapfish, SmugMug, and Zoto. This Wired story gives details on a few others.

If you're up to an easy challenge you can do this instead of the Discovery Exercise options listed above: Create your own free account in Flickr and use your location's digital camera to capture a few pictures of something in your branch. Upload these to your Flickr account and tag at least one of the images "LPLS" and mark it public. Then create a post in your blog about your photo and experience. Be sure to include the image in your post. Once you have a Flickr account, you have two options for doing this: through Flickr's blogging tool or using Blogger's photo upload feature. Make some suggestions on how the library could make use of its Flickr page.

PS: A quick word about photo posting etiquette - When posting identifiable photos of other people (especially minors) is it advisable to get the person's permission before posting their photo in a publicly accessible place like Flickr. Never upload pictures that weren't taken by you (unless you have the photographer's consent) and always give credit when you include photos taken by someone else in your blog.