... well, okay, why not

'Book; socks; on girl', by girlbooksocks, 2008

Later, if I have time, I'll do some photos of the library, and properly complete this activity.

Library porn

While I have peered at people's photos on flickr before, I've not actually done too much searching. Time to change that! My primary search today has been with a focus: I want library porn. You know, the beautiful buildings, the stunning old books, the staircases... all of that. There's a book that has actually been published somewhere full of library porn, and boy, it really is. But flickr is full of this kind of thing, too. Like this:


'The Old Library', by (Eric) 2007

I particularly like the way the photographer has put notes on the photo to point out different features - where his camera was, reflections he liked, and so on. Flickr really is a great resource for photographers to show off... as long as people can find what they've put up. I found this doing a search for 'library', but I bet, on a different day, with other photos uploaded in the meantime, I might not get it so quickly.

Another way I've seen flickr used is for online stores, advertising their products. Wyrding Studios, for example, make handmade jewellery, and as pieces get made, they upload the pictures to flickr. Some of these will be commission pieces, but others will be part of the weekly update, in which they upload all the new pieces to their storefront, and people can buy them. By having them on flickr earlier, though, people can scope out what they might want - and they can go through and get an idea of what kind of thing they might want to commission. The flickr stream for Wyrding Studios is here. I wish they'd tag more, though: it would be nice to be able to search for specific stones, or metals, or styles, and see all the pictures right there. There is some of that functionality on their website, but I'd love to see it in the stream, too.

I was going to put some jewellery porn up here, to end the post off, but then I ended up doing another random search, and instead, I'll end (maybe more appropriately, given my blog title), with this:


'Intellectual Hour' by un4gtableann, 2007

(Though I suppose I should have taken a picture of myself, instead! Or, at least, my socks (I have woven blue ones, all heavy cotton and funky patterns, today), my books).

Hello, world!

Despite being a member of ye olde Generation Y, and a pretty big user of technology, there are a few things around that I've always thought about trying out, but never managed. Some of them, it's because I use alternatives (ie instead of using flickr, I have my own gallery software installed on my personal domain), but for others, it's just not yet been something I've needed access to. I've decided to rectify this - and this Learning 2.0 programme is an excellent way to do it (especially because in doing it, I am able to help other co-workers, by providing helpful hints and feedback as we work through this together).

I was delighted to see Stephen Fry feature in the first week of this, as I'm a long time fan of his, and keep up to date with his blog, which focuses a lot on technology (and, in particular, gadgets. Did I mention that I like gadgets almost as much as I like socks?). I'd encourage anyone with this kind of interest to consider reading his blog... or keeping up to date with it through the RSS feed (hah! See, I just made an opening for a future part of this programme). The blog is here, and the RSS feed, for those inclined, is here.

I would be interested in using blogs in a library context, though most I've seen don't actually really capture the audience. We need something that keeps people coming back to read them; most people just want snippets of information, rather than discussions. But I'm sure there are ways to do it. More thought needed!