Thing 18: Communicating through Photographs

I was really interested in this Thing as I have always been keen to learn more about Flickr and to find out what exactly Instagram is and does.  I have to confess though that I decided against opening a personal Flickr account as I've opened enough accounts during this course to last me a lifetime and, like many others, I am reluctant to part with all the information the registration requires.  Luckily it is possible to browse and use Flickr to a certain degree without signing up!  In fact, many of the images I have used to illustrate my blogs have been taken from Flickr.

Our library has a Flickr account and we used it extensively in 2013 when the University of Limerick celebrated its 40th anniversary.  We had to organize a photographic exhibition and grappled with literally thousands of images taken during those 40 years, many of which depicted events and people we couldn't identify.  One of our team had the bright idea of uploading some of the images onto Flickr to see if this might yield some information and it did!  We are currently experimenting with the idea of using Flickr for a small exhibition of 70 turn-of-the-century glass plate negatives we purchased at an auction a couple of years ago.  We have photographed the negatives and converted them into positives and are hoping that somebody out there might be able to tell us something about the people featured in the images.  I mean, they were only taken a 120 years ago so somebody out there is bound to recognize a face or two, right?!?

Instagram is a new concept for me.  I can't sign up for it as I don't own a smartphone but I was glad to read up about it as I have heard it mentioned many times but hadn't a clue what it was.  Now I know!  It seems to me to be a pictorial version of Twitter and I'm not quite sure how exactly the two differ from one another as Twitter also allows you to share photographs.  I must confess I see limited application for this in a library because, like Twitter, you have to be at it morning, noon and night for it to have any impact and who has time for that, or that many photos or events to promote?

I find photographs a great way to communicate and to spread information because people are instinctively drawn to images.  As people's attention spans are shortening, long reams of text appeal to few whereas a photograph literally only needs a blink of an eye to take in and can really captivate its audience.  As they say, a picture tells more than a thousand words!

Brown Thomas at UL