Week 3 - using images

Our lives revolve around images: in a world with ever-competing demands on our attention it is often the simple or striking image that cuts through the babble to make its mark on our mind. In a presentation, teaching session or blogpost we may need to do that bit extra to make sure our voice is not only heard, but that our material engages with the recipient.

Anyone who has sat through a PowerPoint presentation in black and white, with the only variation between bullet points and numbered list, will tell you that images are vital.

How do I choose images? 

Thanks to A. Diez. Herrero

1. Take your own!
2. Find images online and ask permission from the photographer
3. Find images online whose use is managed by a creative commons licence

What would I use images for? 

As librarians we need to use images in a variety of ways....

• PowerPoints/Prezis for teaching/presentations
• Illustrating blogposts
• Websites
• Creating dynamic emails
• Marketing materials 

Thing 8: Learn about Creative Commons


With a tagline 'Share, Remix, Reuse - Legally' Creative Commons was created as a way of bridging a gap between very restrictive copyright law and the desire for a free internet. So as a creator it provides you with a way of protecting your work (whether it be a photograph, a blog, website or set of slides) at a level you choose, and as a consumer to allow you to use the work of others without fear of legal reprisal.

CC Mission = Creative Commons develops, supports, and stewards legal and technical infrastructure that maximizes digital creativity, sharing, and innovation.

There is a scale of attribution rights: with 6 in total.

Thanks to James Cridland for image via CC licence

Attribution: the most generous license - allowing others to use your work in any way (distribute, remix, tweak or build upon - even commercially) as long as they credit your original work.

Attribution-ShareAlike: as the Attribution option but decrees that the new tweaked work must be made available under the same conditions as the original.

Attribution-NoDerivs: allows for redistribution commercial and non-commercial as long as there are no changes to the whole, and the photographer is credited.

Attribution-NonCommercial: permits others to remix, tweak and build upon work non-commercially as long as attribution occurs. Any derivative works no not have to be licensed on the same terms.

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: Like Attribution-ShareAlike above, but with the caveat the use is non-commercial in nature.

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs: the most restrictive of the licences - permitting use with attribution as long as usage is non-commercial and no changes are made to the original work.

Watch this YouTube video to find out more about the Creative Commons ethos:



So what do you think about Creative Commons? Do you think copyright is too restrictive and isn't suitable for the online world? Do you think the 6 levels of CC licence are adequate? Do you even think the use of images in posts is necessary? Blog it!

How do I choose images using Flickr? 

With over 5 billion images and 60 million photographers Flickr is the King of image libraries. You can browse it without needing to sign up. There's a ready-made tour available via the flickr site. 

Finding Digital Commons images using Flickr

View more presentations from Michelle Riggs

So to find images covered by a creative commons licence simply stick your keywords into the searchbox, then when the results appear click Advanced Search (just to right of the search box)

...and then tick the box towards the bottom of the screen that says: 'Only search within Creative Commons-licensed content'. This will then re-calibrate your search to only find those images whose photographers are happy for their work to be re-used. Note there are extra options below for non-commercial use and modification permissions.

As you saw with blogging, resources are catalogued in social media via tagging, and flickr is no different. The tags that photographers add will help you find their content. Learn more about tagging on flickr. Community is a big thing on Flickr and with 10 million active groups, there is bound to be a group you fancy getting involved in whether it be to add your own photos to the group or just enjoy the content of others. Random groups I've picked out include the 575-member strong Knobs and Handles and the Evil Mad Science Auxiliary.

What's cool about Flickr is the randomness of it all - it really encourages you to think creatively about how you can make your audience sit up and pay attention. There's even a way to search 'interesting' images posted in the last 7 days, and you can just click to reload. 

So what are you waiting for? 

Thing 9: Use Flickr

Use Flickr to find some images to illustrate your blogpost - you could even upload some of your own masterpieces? Don't forget to tag the image within Flickr and give the photographer the attribution within your post.

If you're stuck on what to post about you could search for ideas about how other libraries are using Flickr to improve their services.

Remember to be very careful with your use of images online; the press is packed full of stories about facebook privacy settings and people whose images have been highjacked for other purposes. A woman based in the UK was disturbed to find her image used to portray Syrian blogger Amina Arraf who wrote about her life as a gay woman criticising the regime. You can see the Paxman interview on this, as well as the story that later broke of the whole blog being a hoax.

Cool extra thing: Fotoflexer


Fotoflexer allows you to mess around with your photos to your heart's content - you can add any number of different effects, some more lame than others. You can change colours, distort, beautify, animate or decorate. Here's a few of me below!

Original pic

Pop art style

Squished head/big chin combo

An alternative would be PhotoFunia which allows you to put your face on any number of scenarios: billboards, statues, famous films, paintings, surfing, being Father Christmas and playing sports. I *may* have had a little too much fun here...

Cheap or what? 

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? 

I'm liking the beard look...

Yeah this is likely..!

Posted by Emily Allbon

Week 2 IGoogle and Keeping Up To Date

Week 2

It's a bit of a bumper week this week, but we'll be doing several things which underpin the rest of the 23 Things City programme. Don't forget to blog about each one and to add tags to your posts!

Thing 4 set up i-google page

iGoogle allows you to personalize your use of Google and to add useful gadgets (a bit like having apps on your mobile) and search feeds, bringing lots of useful information together for you in one place. Last week we set up a Google account (you may have had one of these already) and we'll be using it again this week. If you haven't chosen to use Blogger for your blog and need to set up a Google account now, just take a look at the post for week 1.

Go to igoogle  You'll see several options to personalize your page and to choose different colours and themes. Tick the boxes which match your interests e.g. news, music. You can always change these later on, and click on the 'see your page' button

Your basic page will now be displayed. Click on the 'change theme from classic' link in the top right hand corner to change the appearance of your page - you can see my page below has a fun pig theme!

Thing 5 add at least 3 gadgets

Use gadgets or widgets to personalise your page - you may wish to add a weather report, tube status updates, news headline etc or take a break with an artwork of the day gadget. Don't forget to share your favourite gadget via your blog. Once you've done Thing 6 below, you can add feeds onto your igoogle page too.

-Click on the 'Add stuff' link at the top right hand side of the page.

-This will take you to the gadgets page where you can select from a huge range of options.
-The left hand side of the screen allows you to browse by category e.g. communication, finance, or you can use the search box at the right hand side of the screen to just search
- why not try searching for 'library' and see what you find.
-You can now add these to your igoogle page, and can move them around as you prefer.

Here's a screen shot from my igoogle page so you can see how they can be fun as well as useful. I've used a silly theme to add a smile to my day!

Thing 6 Read about alerts and rss feeds in Upgrade, and then set up Google reader and add feeds

Fed up with searching lots of different webpages every day just to find that there's nothing new on your favourite sites? Want to keep useful info from all your favourite sites together? Set up a feed reader and you'll only need to check this as you'll be alerted to any new content. Sit back, relax and the updates come straight to your feed reader.

Just keep an eye out for the orange rss symbol on any of your favourite web pages

Read the section in Upgrade about making information find you and using Google reader. You'll see more info as to different types of alerts and why they are useful, including a short video on rss feeds

Upgrade also mentions that other feed readers are available, such as pageflakes or netvibes, we've chosen Google reader as we think it's the easiest to use. Why not blog if you use one of these other tools?

If you need further help on what feeds are, try the BBC guide 

Go to Google Reader (if you're not already logged on to your Google account, you'll be prompted to do so)

Now you need to find some feeds to add to your reader. Go to your favourite website and see if they have the orange rss symbol and click on it to see the feed. Or you might like to add the BBC Education news feed

You can see that this is a feed by looking at the URL - it ends in .rss.xml so you can copy it to add into your Google reader

Click on the Add Subscription button and then paste your rss feed url into the box

You can use the Manage Subscriptions option at the very bottom left hand side of your Google Reader screen to delete and rename your feeds or to add them into folders.

The link is very small so look closely!

Thing 7 add feed from the 23 Things blog into your feed reader

Keep up to date with this blog by adding the feed so that you can keep all your updates in one place. You may like to add feeds from all the other 23 Things particpants blogs.

Click on the orange rss button on the blog homepage - you'll see a couple of options, just click on the one that says 23 Things City rss - this will take you to the news feed for the blog.

Then just highlight and copy the URL and then paste it into your Google Reader via the Add a Subscription button.

Some sites and readers may work differently (e.g. you may just be able to paste in the url of the site without getting the specific feed) but this should give you the general idea!

Cool Extra Thing

You can also add feeds from your favourite searches in Google or from many of our literature searching databases and e-journals. This is great if you have constructed a very complicated search, using lots of truncation and synonyms etc, as it means you wont have to type it in every time you want to search. Here's an image from an EBSCO database.

If you're adding feeds from Google, take a minute to think about your search first as broad search terms could result in very large numbers of results.

You can read about other cool uses for Google Reader from the Hellbound Bloggers blog

 

Rowena

Week 1 blog and blogging

Blogging is central to 23 Things City as we use this blog to release each weeks Things, and it’s also how we keep track of your progress via the blogs you set up as part of the programme

What is blogging?

Blogging is the act of writing or keeping a blog - a modern day diary or journal which allows you to communicate your thoughts to the wider world. Blogs are used by a wide range of individuals and organisations to communicate with users, members and friends. They can be used to promote services, reflect on events, build up networks and to communicate ideas

General Haig's diary for Armistice Day 1918

National Library of Scotland

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nlscotland/3007997338/

Why should librarians and libraries blog?

Many individual librarians blog, reflecting on their work and on ideas for new, potential or existing services.

You can see some interesting blogs from

• Phil Bradley
• John Iona
• Librarians on the loose
• Karen Blakeman
• LIS New Professionals
• The wikiman
• Screwy Decimal
• Joeyanne Libraryanne
• and of course our very own Lawbore Future Lawyer blog

Libraries also blog to communicate news and to promote services. Posts can be quite immediate so news can be communicated very quickly.

Check out some interesting Library blogs

Whole suite of blogs from the British Library

Digital Developments from LSE Library

Loughborough University Library

Wellcome Library

Blogging & 23 Things City

Once you’ve set up your blog you should use this to reflect on your experience of each weeks Things - how you use them, how you might use them in future, what applications you can see for libraries or indeed your personal life. Maybe you’ve discovered some great new things you’d like to share with other participants and the wider world. Even if you’ve used one of the Things before you may have had a chance to consider it afresh.

Please do blog about your experiences - this is how the 23 Things Team can see how you are engaging with the programme. If you just blog a short line on that you have done and completed the task this will not be considered sufficient as it’s not really within the spirit of the programme, which is about discovery, reflection and sharing.  

Remember there will be a prize for the best blog, along with some other prizes  

Thing 1 Set up your blog and register it with the 23 Things City programme

 How to do it

We have used blogger for this blog, and suggest that you do the same as we'll be using Google accounts later in the programme although you may prefer to use Wordpress or Tumblr. If you've already got a blog and don't want to set up a new one, that's OK. Just register your blog with the 23 Things Team and start using it to reflect on your expereinces of the programme

 This short video gives you an overview of how to set up a blogger blog

Go to http://www.blogger.com/ and sign in with your google account. If you don’t already have one, don’t worry, they are very easy to set up, Just click on the create account now option.

- Complete the registration form.

- You must enter a valid e-mail address that you can check immediately after registration!

- If you’re registering on a shared computer or have more than one Google account then you’ll need to disable the ‘stay signed in’ option.

- If you do not want your searches recorded then you should disable ‘Personalized Search’.

- Agree to Google’s terms of service

You will be sent an e-mail to verify your e-mail address. Log in to your e-mail account and you’ll see a new message from Google. Click on the link contained in the e-mail to verify your e-mail address.

Go back to your web browser and click the ‘Click here to continue’ link.

Now enter your newly chosen Google password and click ‘Sign in'

  

You will see the ‘sign up for blogger' screen – complete the details as necessary and click on continue.

Your next screen allows you to name your blog – remember there will be a prize for best blog name, but you can go back and change your name later. You will also pick the blogs URL, Blogger will inform you if anyone else has already chosen your URL and prompt you to pick a different one

The next screen allows you to pick a template, with different colours and designs, again you can change this later if you prefer. Feeling adventurous? You can also create your own design

Thing 2 Add your first post(s) Get blogging! You may want to blog your first post with an introduction to who you are and what you're interested in. Add a second post on your experience of setting up the blog and what you've learnt so far. You'll be blogging each week on your experiences of the various Things. Try adding some images - on Blogger you can insert these via clicking on the image button from the toolbar

You may want to look at blogs created by participants on the 23 Things Oxford or 23 Things Warwick

 Why not share great blogs you've found with the rest of the 23 Things City team!

Thing 3 Add some tags.
As library staff and information professionals we know the importance of organising information so that other people can find it, be that through correct use of metadata, via classifying titles consistently or by using subject headings. You’ll notice this blog uses tags to that readers can go straight to the bits they need - for example this post has the tags week1, blogs, blogging etc

Each week you'll need to add tags to your posts - we suggest you use thing1 thing2 etc but don't forget to add tags which express the content of each post.


In Blogger you can add tags in the Labels box at the bottom of each posting screen, don't forget to add a comma between each tag to separate them out Cool Extra Thing 1 - Commenting on blogs We'll be adding links to all participants blogs on the 23 Things Site - have a look at these and add some comments to your fellow participants blogs. OK this may not seem very cool at first but it's great when you see that someone has commented on your blog!



Rowena