I'm no longer there (being now in New Zealand), but when I was at East
Lothian Museums, I started using Flickr for collection images (and
information) in August 2006 (which I guess makes _East Lothian_ the
first museum to use Flickr for historic photos from its collection...).
I'd seen what Brooklyn Museum had done with the Graffiti project, but it
occurred to me that it would be a cheap and simple way for museums
(especially small ones) to get their collections online. So I just took
some of our existing images and information and bunged it up there with
no publicity to see what happened. It turned out to be very interesting.
Since then it's been used for other things too - from outputs from
education projects to documenting the conservation of a locomotive (in
conjunction with video on YouTube). Using various plugins we (still
saying 'we' <sigh>) could pull in the images from Flickr and use them on
our own web sites. For example, we used the Tantannoodles Flickr plugin
for Wordpress, which lets you insert your Flickr images into your blog
posts through the editor interface.
We then developed a variant of this plugin to pull in images from a
group, rather than a single account, for another community project -
helping people digitise their images and put them online (setting up
Flickr accounts), plus an open group pool, plus a group blog to bring
the info and the stories together and allow the creation of
works/items/posts making use of images from different contributors (if
you see what I mean). It's a work in progress - I left after setting it
all up, but before the actual hard work of getting participants
together, etc. got under way! Part B of this project involved getting
participants to edit the EXIF data (before uploading) to add more useful
info that we could then pull out (and bring together with the EU partner
projects' images) using the API. Possible in principle, but still to be
done 'in anger' as it were.
Best wishes
Pete Gray
Deputy Community & Cultural Manager
Wanganui District Council
New Zealand
-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Bridget McKenzie
Sent: Thursday, 29 May 2008 8:43 p.m.
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Using Flickr
I'm researching on the possibilities of Flickr for museums and cultural
learning, covering a wide range including:
- The possibilities of video (90 secs - 'long photos') e.g. this group
on comparing pronunciations: ( http://www.flickr.com/groups/word_time/ )
- Flickr Commons, and George Oates' recent post on the use of Flickr as
a collections management tool
- Museums as Flickr members: e.g. Brooklyn Museum using Flickr for
behind the scenes documentation etc - (
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brooklyn_museum/ )
- Museums promoting themselves or gathering knowledge through geotagging
photos (see London page:
http://flickr.com/places/United+Kingdom/England/London )
- Using Flickr for documenting public art projects e.g. Tate's street
art ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/cansfestival/interesting/ ) and
Artichoke's Telectroscope ( http://www.flickr.com/groups/telectroscope/
)
- Museums creating a community of enthusiasts through groups e.g.
National Railway Museum (
http://www.flickr.com/groups/nationalrailwaymuseum/ ) and the
public/friends themselves creating a group e.g. Livesey Museum for
Children - because the Council shut it and we need to reopen it! (
http://flickr.com/groups/707018@N22/ )
- Using Flickr for creative writing projects (e.g.
http://flickr.com/groups/nycwp/discuss/162532/ )
- Using Flickr to solicit public uploads for competitions or exhibitions
e.g. Tate's How We Are Now ( http://flickr.com/groups/howwearenow/ )
- Bypassing institutional websites to document education projects
swiftly, collaboratively and in a neutral space...
So:
Have I forgotten any angle?
Do you have any examples to share? If it's your project, how's it
working?
Do you have any thoughts on what you could do with Flickr in the future?
Are there/could there be alternatives to Flickr?
Any other views or tricky issues?
Many thanks,
Bridget McKenzie
Director, Flow Associates
07890 540178
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Pete Gray
Deputy Community & Cultural Manager
Office of Culture and Community
Wanganui District Council
Telephone Number: 06 3490001
FAX: 06 3490000
[log in to unmask]
www.wanganui.govt.nz
101 Guyton Street
PO Box 637
Wanganui 4500
New Zealand
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