Thing 4 - Flickr

Flickr is not entirely new to me - I used it this past year to find images for our library guide to resources on China. It was easy to use and I found an overwhelming variety of images to choose from. Maybe it's just because I'm a librarian and I appreciate controlled vocabulary, but the tags were not very helpful. I'm sure people choose tags that are meaningful to them and, really, why shouldn't they? (This is probably the same frustration I have with Barnes & Noble - I can't find anything there.)

I took the Flickr tour and admire the thought that has gone into their product. They have made it very easy share photos and create groups. The maps feature is really cool - I'll have to try that out the next time I'm going on a trip. It's interesting that they have a "make stuff" section - I love the little photo books and the "23 Things" stamp is so cute! I like the Explore feature, but am usually using Flickr to search for something specific.

Which is exactly what I did for the second part of this Thing. From the Flickr homepage, I searched for Peggy's Cove. This photo was the first result. It didn't quite capture the Peggy's Cove I remembered. It needed to be a photo with the sky more overcast and the sea a bit more of a steely blue. I tried the Advanced Search - searching for Peggy's Cove and foggy in the tags only. This photo was getting closer, but I really wanted an image with the rocks in it (and maybe the lighthouse). I decided to try Peggy's Cove rocks foggy as a full text search. I found a great image, but since it wasn't a Creative Commons photo, I decided to post this one instead:

It's a hauntingly beautiful place in Nova Scotia. Credits go to Sarboo.