Flickr

This cracking shot of a cricket crowd at the Sydney Cricket Ground c.1900-1910 was my introduction to Flickr. The State Library of New South Wales has started to add some of its photographic treasures to Flickr. They make an interesting counterpoint to many of the post-modern photos that anyone with a digital camera can create and upload to Flickr. I have never seen so many photos of the State Library buildings taken from bizarre angles!

Tagging photos is an interesting exercise. I can certainly see the value of applying tags to images. My only wish is that there could be some control over the tags, some kind of standard. For example, digital photographers have uploaded photos of the State Library and tagged them with various headings. These include statelibraryofnsw, statelibrary, slnsw, statelibraryofnewsouthwales, old library sydney, and possibly several others as well! A controlled vocabulary or authority file would be a wonderful idea. However, it is probably asking way too much. (Who would be in charge? One of the beauties of the internet is that nobody is in charge!)

Or maybe I need to stop thinking like a librarian.