#7: Online Image Generators

This much the same vein as the Flickr Mashups, but more specific. I've actually used generators before, and I subscribe to the generator blog in Google Reader already. I created wanted posters featuring items of food for a food drive and put those up in our library. The librarian trading cards are quite simply awesome; I had seen last year's, but this was the first time I saw the newest batch. I love them because they really connect with users, and they present librarians as both superheroes (knowing everything! researching at the speed of light!) and very human, with a wonderful sense of humor. I've always been quite jealous of these cards :)

I think I love generators so much because I am not that adept at Photoshop (considering its expense, I've barely been able to look at it at all!). I've downloaded GIMP, the open-source alternative, but I still need some sort of instruction because I find it too confusing.

Let's see what I can make!

My Medieval Name: ALEMANDRINA CAMELOT (link)
My Hip-Hop Name: PHATTY McBLING (link)
My Personalized Shakespeare Insult: Thou currish crook-pated clack-dish! (link)

My Celebrity Baby Name: Hendrix Clara (link)

My Gangsta Name: FOXXY STEEZ (link)

My Old School DJ Name: FAST-MIXER WHAM (link)

My E-mail: (link)

My Soundbadge:

And of course, my absolutely favorite generator, Wordle. This is a tag cloud, which you can generate from a block of text (like a song!) or an entire blog which parses out keywords and makes the most frequently-used ones bigger.

#6: Flickr Mashups

Building on Flickr, these mashups are quite fun to play around with. Sometimes we need cool graphics for library promotion, signs, etc., These mashups could make posters etc., infinitely more interesting. Beyond an aesthetic look and the fact they are just plain fun, however, I must confess that I'm not creative to think of more ways to implement them. Enough talking, however--let's look at what I made!

Warholizer

Spelling with Flickr

Jigsaw

P.S. Can I mention that even though it's free, and I'm grateful for that, Blogger is driving me nuts! I'm a constantly fighting with it for layout, every time I try to insert a pictures it doesn't matter where the cursor is, it's going right at the top, and the spacing is messed up. Not fun. I've had to go into the HTML editor just to fix some major problems.

#5: Flickr

Flickr is a wonderful tool for finding pictures and new and interesting groups. I haven't had much luck with using it personally however. I originally used Yahoo Photos, but when it shut down, I was transferred to Flickr. It was great for a while, as I got a premium membership for free, but after a few months it expired, and I was downgraded. Now I can only show 200 photos (and only the last 200 I uploaded, not 200 of my choice) and the rest of my pictures are basically being held hostage until I pay to re-up my membership. I have no desire to pay, so I'm stuck in limbo. Instead, I've been exploring Picasa, one of Google's many applications, and I've liked what I've seen. I also have quite a few pictures on Facebook. I keep my personal photos private for the most part. Facebook doesn't let you keep things completely private, so I try to avoid posting pictures that I don't want out there, and I never post pictures of my family. To view a fun Picasa album of mine with past yearbook photos generated from a website, visit here. Some of them are definitely better than others! I think so far I prefer Picasa because there is a desktop application as well as a web application, and this allows you to automatically find pictures to upload. There's also no need to create a new log-in--if you have a Google log-in, you're fine!

While I was at USF, I created a Flickr account for their library, and uploaded some pictures of book displays. I absolutely love the Clemens note features for book displays and I can see some real potential there. Unfortunately, not much else was done with this account. I'd love to be able to get some great pictures uploaded to promote my library, with a mixture of displays, events, everyday 'library-ing' and our READ posters.

Flickr is a veritable treasure trove of information. Here are some groups and albums that I find especially interesting:

• Free Use Photos


• Library Cards


• Librarians' Desks


• HDR (High Dynamic Range Imaging photos - breathtaking!)


• [citation needed]


• Sleeveface pool

A lot of highly respectable institutions have joined Flickr and uploaded public domain images from their special collections. Here are a few:

• The Library of Congress


• Boston Public Library


• Biblioteca de Arte-Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian


• Bibliothèque de Toulouse


• George Eastman House


• The Smithsonian Institute
  
• American Libraries

Here is one picture from the HDR pool that is just amazing to look at. It was taken by Dave Zombie and posted Feb. 2, 2009.