Flickr & Libraries: Welcoming Patrons with Virtual Photos
From LIS5313
[edit] Introduction
| Five Ways Libraries Can Use Flickr | |
|---|---|
Method | Example |
| 1. To host photo tours | MSU Libraries |
| 2. To promote reading and collections | Clemens and Alcuin Libraries |
| 3. To make contacts | University of Delaware Library |
| 4. To share photos of library events | Thomas Ford Memorial Library |
| 5. To share library history, renovations, and remodeling | Tualatin Public Library |
Working in reference and instruction in a university library for 2 1/2 years has taught me that the promotion and marketing of user services in an academic library is extremely important. Most students, parents, faculty, staff, and community patrons are unaware of events and services available to them at their university library; several times each semester I help seniors at the reference desk who proclaim that they "have never even been inside the library before" because they try to get all of their research materials from the internet. For many members of the university and surrounding community, the word library conjures an image of a dull, silent place filled with tall shelves of dusty books. Libraries of the digital age need to find ways to trump the traditional library image and invite patrons inside to experience everything the library has to offer. Meredith Farkas (2007) suggests that Flickr is an optimal tool that libraries can employ to reach out to users and make them feel welcome.
[edit] Why Flickr?
Flickr is one of many online photo management and sharing applications. Other photo sharing sites include Photobucket, Snapfish, Webshots, Shutterfly, Zooomr, Kodak Gallery, and Google's Picasa Web Albums. This report focuses on Flickr because it is one of the most widely used photo sharing sites, and its array of features and excellent organization options make it easy for libraries to showcase user services. On Flickr’s About page, the two main goals of the application are stated as 1) to help people make their photos available to the people who matter to them, and 2) to enable new ways of organizing photos. Flickr achieves these goals by making it easy for users to share photos via RSS feeds, email, blogs, and on the site itself. Users can organize photos by adding notes and tags. Free accounts allow users to upload 100 MB per month, and pro accounts, available for $25 per year, allow unlimited uploads[1] and storage.
In addition to being cost-friendly, Flickr is relatively easy to use. Because the main skill required to use Flickr is the ability to upload photos, it is less intimidating than many other Web 2.0 tools, programs, and applications, such as those that facilitate podcasting and digital storymaking. Librarians who feel less comfortable experimenting with technology may find Flickr to be a good starting point for delving into the realm of Library 2.0.
Why is this application such a good tool for library promotion? Janine Schmidt (2007) emphasizes the need for libraries to adopt new promotional and marketing strategies aimed at today’s “media-saturated” users. She acknowledges the difficulty involved in informing users of new services, especially internet savvy Net Gen users who “want information brought to them and [who] want services with minimal effort.” With over 4 million users and more than 214 million photos (Gibbons 2007), Flickr has the potential to help libraries connect with these types of patrons. As of December 2006, more than 30 public, academic, and special libraries held Flickr accounts (Casey & Savastinuk 2007).
How can Flickr be used to market library services? Darren Chase (2007) suggests using Flickr to brand, signify, preserve, record, and share library services, collections, and events. By placing the appropriate tags on library photos, librarians can facilitate the sharing of photos in their Flickr accounts; for instance, the library employees who maintain a library's Flickr account may wish to include the name of their community as a tag on all photos so that local Flickr users will find library photos when searching Flickr for photos tagged with their community's name. Rachel Singer Gordon and Michael Stephens (2006) also discuss ways libraries can make connections with the local community and the library community on a larger scale by using Flickr profiles to make contacts[2]. Libraries with Flickr accounts can add any other Flickr user as a contact, including members of their local community as well as other public, academic, and special libraries, library systems and organizations, and other institutions. When another Flickr account holder is marked as a contact, their photos are easily accessed from the contacts page and their latest photos are easily viewed as they are posted. Gordon and Stephens (2006) also encourage libraries to use Flickr to display images via RSS, provide library-related HTML links in notes, and share library history, remodeling, and renovations. In addition to these uses, Mickey Coalwell (2006) suggests that libraries use Flickr to create a gallery of library workers, administration, volunteers, and Board of Trustees, or to use Flickr to host a virtual library tour.
Two academic libraries, the Clemens and Alcuin Libraries serving the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University (CSBSJU) and Michigan State University Libraries, are using Flickr in creative ways to promote their collections and services. Representatives from these libraries provided information on their Flickr accounts in personal interviews.
[edit] The Clemens and Alcuin Libraries: Using Flickr to Promote Reading and Library Materials
The Clemens and Alcuin Libraries serve the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University (CSBSJU) in Minnesota. These libraries use Flickr in several interesting ways. LeAnn Suchy, Reference and Information Literacy Librarian at CSBSJU, is responsible for the creation and maintenance of the libraries’ Flickr account and the promotional photo sets hosted there. Suchy discussed the purpose and success of the libraries’ This Day in History Flickr series in an email interview on November 21, 2007.
[edit] Creation and Purpose
CSBSJU Libraries’ This Day in History series highlights events in history while simultaneously promoting books related to highlighted historic events. Suchy created the This Day in History series in May of 2007 to promote books and reading. The CSBSJU libraries were already highlighting events in history with indoor library displays; those displays, History.com’s This Day in History series, and Suchy’s desire to promote the libraries’ collections in a “fun, different way that might get students interested in reading” led to the creation of the Flickr series.
[edit] Maintenance
Suchy spends about 4-5 hours per month maintaining and updating the History series and other library photo sets on Flickr. She explained that it is not feasible to upload a History photo for every day of the month; she usually posts between 10 and 15 photos for each month, uploading them one or two months in advance and setting them to private[3] until the day they should be viewed by the public. To choose a historical event to include in the series, Suchy searches through several resources and picks out events about which the Clemens and/or Alcuin Library owns supporting materials. She then takes pictures of the materials and uploads the pictures to Flickr. Suchy takes advantage of the "Add Note" feature in Flickr and adds comments to photos about library items and their location, complete with hyperlinks to the library catalog. These comments appear when viewers roll their cursor across the photo; as a result, viewers are invited to visit the Clemens and Alcuin Libraries website to determine the availability of items in the online catalog.
[edit] Promotion
To promote the series, Suchy utilizes the campus Bulletin Board, hosted on the CSBSJU web page. The information submitted to the Bulletin Board can be accessed directly from the web site, and daily informational headlines are also sent out to the entire CSBSJU community via email, complete with links to further information. Suchy enters information on the Bulletin Board in the form of a brain teaser to encourage readers to follow the link to the Flickr account to find out more. For example, the November 26th, 2007 entry stated:
“On This Day in History. . .
. . . this President officially signed a bill stating that Thanksgiving would be a national Holiday held on the fourth Thursday every November. Did you have a good Thanksgiving break? Then maybe you should honor this President somehow! Click on 'More Info' to see which President signed the bill and to find books in your library all about Thanksgiving.”
The November 21st, 2007 entry read:
“On This Day in History. . .
. . . this famous singer appeared on stage for the first time in 1934. She was dressed in men’s shoes and borrowed clothing, but it didn’t matter, she was a hit! Click 'More Info' to find the answer and to find books in your library all about her.”
Intrigued faculty, staff, and students have to click on the link provided, which takes them to the Flickr photo for the day. The featured items are not always books; sometimes the items are movies and other materials held by the Clemens and Alcuin Libraries.
[edit] Feedback
The series has elicited a positive response from library colleagues as well as from CSBSJU faculty, staff, and students. Suchy has received emails from librarians around the world inquiring abut the creation and maintenance of the series, and many libraries have added the Clemens and Alcuin Libraries’ Flickr account as a contact to their own Flickr accounts. After giving a presentation about social networking tools and library marketing at the Minnesota Library Association Conference, Suchy received requests to provide further information and more presentations about Flickr and other social networking tools. She has also gotten frequent emails from CSBSJU employees and students who provide positive statements such as “This is such an awesome idea!” and “I love your brain teasers that you post every day - a great idea!”
[edit] Overall Contribution to User Services
While there has been no formal assessment of the specific effects of the This Day in History series and other Flickr promotions on CSBSJU library users, Suchy believes that the Flickr series is at least partially responsible for encouraging students to read more. When asked about the series’ contribution to user services, she stated:
- I think this contributes tremendously to user services. As I said before, our students had taken a survey where many of them said that they did not read books other than books in their classes. Being that these are liberal arts institutions, this is not an ideal outcome we would like for our students. Highlighting books and reading in an interesting way may spark an interest for some of our students to actually go and pick up one of these books. And, according to the latest survey they took, our students are reading more. I can’t say for sure that this series of pictures is the reason they are reading more, but the books in the pictures are getting checked out, so I’d like to think they contribute to student reading and learning.
[edit] Other Uses of Flickr
The Clemens and Alcuin Libraries use Flickr for other promotions in addition to the This Day in History series. Through Flickr, Suchy also promotes two book shelves, one in the Clemens Library and one in the Alcuin Library, that contain new books and popular reading items. Suchy uploads new pictures of these shelves monthly, adding notes to each book to describe the book and to provide a link to the book’s catalog record. This promotion is called Clemens/Alcuin Reads. The libraries also provide photo tours of their facilities through their Flickr account.
Suchy plans to begin posting photos from library events in Flickr. For example, in April her library will have an Edible Book Festival, “where students, faculty, and staff can enter food items either in the shape of a book or inspired by a book.” She plans to photograph the festival and upload the photos to the Libraries’ Flickr account. The Clemens and Alcuin Libraries are currently making their own Reads posters featuring faculty, staff, and students from the CSBSJU campus; in addition to posting events photos on Flickr, Suchy hopes to post the Clemens and Alcuin Libraries Reads pictures on Flickr, as well.
[edit] Michigan State University Libraries: Using Flickr to Visually Represent the Library
MSU Libraries began using Flickr for promotional purposes in late 2006. Reference librarian Angela Maycock managed the production of a photo tour to reach out to internet users and potential library patrons. Maycock provided some insight into the production of this virtual tour in an email interview on December 6, 2007.
[edit] Creation and Purpose
Maycock chose to create a photo tour using Flickr because she felt a need to create an “updated and dynamic visual tour” of the main library at MSU. Maycock and others involved in the project wanted to take advantage of the social networking aspects of Flickr by connecting with users in an online community, thus “meeting users where they are.”
The idea for the project was raised on October 2, 2006; the production process progressed smoothly and a link to the Flickr photo tour was in place on the library website by December 12, 2006. Several library employees, including the Associate Director of Public Services, the Information Technology staff, and Maycock herself, contributed to the project with their input and involvement. The photos used in the tour were taken by a staff member with an interest in photography.
![MSU Main Library, Image from Photo Tour (Courtesy of Flickr user MSU Libraries])](/LIS5313/index.php/Image:MSULibPhotoTour.jpg)
[edit] Feedback
Maycock reports positive responses to the tour from colleagues and library users. The most positive reaction “came from a new librarian who told [Maycock] that when she found the Flickr tour on MSU’s website, she knew [MSU Libraries] must be a forward thinking institution and that influenced her decision to take the job.”
MSU Libraries has not conducted any formal assessment of the photo tour and its contribution to user services, but after appearing on Flickr for just over a month, the tour received a total of 620 photo views[4] by Flickr users. This number increased to over 1,200 views by the end of February 2007. In addition to their photo tour's high number of views, MSU Libraries has built a community of twelve Flickr contacts, including the Michigan Library Consortium and the American Library Association.
[edit] Future Goals
Although the photo tour is featured in a prominent space on the MSU Libraries website, Maycock and her colleagues currently do not otherwise actively promote the tour. Maycock stated that she hopes to do more with the promotion of the tour in the future. In addition to this goal, Maycock plans to manage the production of Flickr photo tours for two branch libraries at MSU.
[edit] Other Ways Libraries are Using Flickr
The Clemens and Alcuin Libraries and MSU Libraries are just two examples of the use of Flickr as a marketing tool; many different types of libraries are using Flickr in various ways. Several systems and institutions, including the Shawnee Library System in Illinois, Beck-Bookman Library in Holton, Kansas, Auburn University Libraries in Auburn, Alabama, and Homer Township Public Library in Illinois, upload pictures of special library events to their Flickr accounts. Homer Township Public Library also has a Flickr set devoted to photos of the Homer community. In addition to sharing photos of library events, Thomas Ford Memorial Library in Illinois uses Flickr to showcase scenes of their beautiful building. Illinois State University (ISU) Milner Library has a large collection of Flickr photos, including an interesting set featuring their own READ posters; one such READ poster features ISU football players in their game gear. The University of Delaware Library also uses a Flickr account to share images from special library collections, such as the George Handy Bates Samoan Papers.
Gordon and Stephens (2006) suggest that librarians experiment with the use of “Flickr Toys” such as “fd’s Flickr Toys” to create trading cards, READ posters, magazine covers, movie posters, and more. These toys provide many possibilities for the creation of promotional library items which can be hosted on Flickr or even printed off for further use.
[edit] Digital Media Component
After researching the use of Flickr as a marketing tool for libraries and interviewing LeAnn Suchy and Angela Maycock, I decided to create a library photo tour for Auburn University Libraries as the accompanying digital media component for this report. To create the tour, I drew upon a combination of ideas and techniques used by the interviewees in the creation of their Flickr sets, such as Maycock's well organized photo tour and Suchy's tactic of including informative comments and hyperlinks in the notes on each photo. I used GIMP and Picnik to edit the photos and made use of the title, description, and notes features in Flickr. Click here to view the tour.
[edit] Conclusion
As illustrated by the examples shared here, the social media site Flickr should not be overlooked as a powerful Web 2.0 tool. Flickr can be utilized by libraries to promote user services in many ways, from sharing photos of library events and collections to hosting creative reading promotions and virtual tours. Photos featured on Flickr are accessible to millions of internet users across communities, regions, and countries all over the world; libraries can take advantage of this widespread network to make contacts that can enhance their relationship with local patrons as well as provide them with the opportunity to connect with other library systems and organizations to keep abreast of library events and services and to stay informed about the latest ways in which other libraries are using Flickr. With free accounts and the option to upgrade to a pro account for only $25 per year, Flickr is an economical, potentially creative way to invite users into libraries and to inform them of library events and other offerings.
[edit] Notes
- ↑ Pro account uploads are limited to 10 MB per photo.
- ↑ According to the Flickr:Help page, contacts are nice to have, and can be organized into "friends, family, or friends and family." Adding a contact is as easy as clicking a link on a user's profile page. Flickr users are limited to 3,000 non-reciprocal contacts.
- ↑ Flickr account holders can choose public or private settings for each photo uploaded. Public photos are available for viewing by everyone; account holders can choose who, if anyone, can view their private photos.
- ↑ Flickr includes a view counter on the page of each uploaded photo.
[edit] References
Casey, M. E. & Savastinuk, L. (2007). Library 2.0: A Guide to Participatory Library Service, Information Today, Inc., New Jersey.
Chase, D. (2007). "Transforming Sharing with Instant Messaging, Wikis, Interactive Maps, and Flickr." Computers in Libraries, v. 27, no. 1, pp. 6 - 8, 52 - 54, 56.
Coalwell, M. (2006). "16 Ways to Use Flickr @ Your Library." Posted with permission by Michael Stephens on Tame the Web, September 2006. Available from:
- http://tametheweb.com/2006/09/steal_this_idea_flickr_for_lib.html [25 November 2007].
Farkas, M. (2007). "Pixels Worth 1,000 Words." American Libraries, v. 38, no. 8, pp. 42.
Gibbons, S. (2007). The Academic Library and the Net Gen Student, ALA, Chicago.
Gordon, R. S. & Stephens, M. (2006). "Priceless Images: Getting Started with Flickr." Computers in Libraries, v. 26, no. 10, pp. 44 - 45.
Schmidt, J. (2007). "Promoting Library Services in a Google World." Library Management, v. 28, no. 6/7, pp. 337 - 346.
[edit] Resources
- Clemens and Alcuin Libraries' Flickr Account The Clemens and Alcuin Libraries serving the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University use their Flickr account to promote reading and library services. Their account includes photos from LeAnn Suchy's This Day in History series, photo tours of each library, and photos of new and popular library materials.
- Michigan State University Libraries' Photo Tour MSU Libraries' Flickr account hosts a photo tour of the main library. The photos were contributed by a library staff member with an interest in photography.
- Auburn University Libraries' Flickr Account Auburn University Libraries' Flickr account displays photos of special library events, such as a marathon reading of Kerouac's On the Road and the library's annual open house.
- Shawnee Library System's Flickr Account The Shawnee Library System has uploaded photos from Illinois Library Day and other library events to their Flickr account.
- Beck-Bookman Library's Flickr Account Beck-Bookman Library uses their Flickr account to display photos of library events, children's programs, and special classes.
- Homer Township Public Library's Flickr Account Homer Township Public Library's 61 Flickr photo sets showcase library patrons and events as well as promote the Homer community.
- Thomas Ford Memorial Library's Flickr Account The Thomas Ford Memorial Library has 18 photo sets on Flickr devoted to various library events, new library materials, book covers for the library website, and shots of the building.
- Illinois State University Milner Library's Flickr Account ISU Milner Library hosts a large number of photos through their Flickr account. Photo sets include custom READ posters, photos from events such as a Banned Book Reading, photos from special library exhibits, and more.
- Tualatin Public Library Tualatin Public Library is sharing the remodeling of their library through their Flickr account.
- fd's Flickr Toys Flickr user fd's open source Flickr Toys are available here for download. With fd's toys, users can create posters, trading cards, magazine covers, and more.
