Tagging In Flickr

Flickr allows you to tag your photos at any time. You can tag them as you are uploading them, or do it later. Once you've tagged them, though, there are a LOT of things you can do with the tags in Flickr.

www.flickr.com More Flickr photos tagged with libraries

This badge uses the tag "libraries" to pull photos from everyone in Flickr. To find photos matching a particular tag, just enter the words you are looking for into the Flickr search box. Click on the tag you want, and view all the photos that Flickr has that are tagged with that label.
The library's website uses Flickr badges to show photos from all the library's collections (www.mrrl.org) and photos from our collection tagged with "Linn" on the Osage site (www.mrrl.org/osage).

Tag Clouds
A tag cloud (or weighted list in visual design) can be used as a visual depiction of content tags used on a website. Often, more frequently used tags are depicted in a larger font or otherwise emphasized, while the displayed order is generally alphabetical. Thus both finding a tag by alphabet and by popularity is possible. Selecting a single tag within a tag cloud will generally lead to a collection of items that are associated with that tag. - Wikipedia, "tag_cloud"

Flickr uses the concept of the tag cloud in their "popular tags" feature. There, you can see the most commonly used tags in the Flickr system, ordered alphabetically, with the most popular tags rendered in the largest type.

Sets in Flickr

This is the "Organizr" on the Flickr website which allows you to create sets of pictures. A set is just a group of pictures, usually related in some way, that you would like to put together for your visitors. You can use sets in other ways, too - but we'll get to that later.
Free accounts get 3 sets included. Paid accounts get unlimited numbers of sets. To create a set, once you've logged into your Flickr account, go to the "Organize" link at the top of the page to get to the Organizr. From here, you can simply drag and drop pictures from the pic-strip at the bottom of the screen onto the large gray area in the middle of the page. You'll notice that the first image that you put on the screen becomes the "icon" image for that set. You can change this at any time by dragging one of your images from the gray workspace to the icon. That image will then become the image that is used next to the name of your set in your account.

In this screenshot, I've used the 3rd image I included in the set to be the "icon" for the set of pictures of Elizabeth at the library. I've also named the set (Elizabeth) and added a brief description in the yellow sidebar area on the left. Click the blue "Save" button at the bottom of that sidebar, and you have a brand-new set of images that you can do all sorts of interesting things with!

1. Create a "guest pass" to allow folks without Flickr accounts to see your private photos that you've included in a set. (Share This Set link on the set's page)
   
2. Use a set you have created as the photos that you show on your site with a Flickr Badge (more about that later!)
3. View just the photos in your set as a slideshow.
   

Flickr - Free vs. Pro

Free:

• 100 MB monthly upload limit (5MB per photo)
• 3 sets
• Photostream views limited to the 200 most recent images
• Post any of your photos in up to 10 group pools (more on this later)
  
• Only smaller (resized) images accessible (though the originals are saved in case you upgrade later)

Pro:

• Unlimited uploads (10MB per photo)
• Unlimited storage
• Unlimited bandwidth
• Unlimited photosets
• Permanent archiving of high-resolution original images
• The ability to replace a photo
• Post any of your photos in up to 60 group pools
• Ad-free browsing and sharing

Flickr - Groups

What is a group?
It's sort of like a set - with a bunch of contributors. Sets are groups of photos with a common theme. Groups are groups of users who have a common interest and who include some of their individual photos into the group "pool". There are 3 kinds of groups:

• Public - anyone can join
• Public, invite only - anyone can view the group's pool of pics, but only those with invites can join
• Private - joining and viewing are both done by invitation only

There are thousands of groups already on Flickr - you can join any of the already created ones or you can create one of your own. MRRL just recently joined a group called 365 Library Days project, where each of the libraries involved will try to add 365 pictures to the group photo pool over the course of a year.
Finding and Joining Groups
Go to http://www.flickr.com/groups/ to find a search box that will allow you to find groups fitting your interests. When you find a group you would like to join in the results list, click on the name of the group to go to its page. There, if the group is public, you will be able to join it by clicking on the link that says, "Join This Group?". Confirm that you really want to join, and you are in.
Adding a photo to a group
To add a photo to a group to which you belong, go to that photo's page and click on the "Add To Group" button at the top of the photo. A list of groups will appear. Click on the name of the group and your image will be included in that group's photo pool.

Other uses for Groups
Groups also allow the members of the group to engage in discussions about their interests, find people in the group with similar interests to their own and feel like they are part of a community on Flickr.