Flickr thoughts

I was first introduced to flickr as a MLIS student. I received a RA fellowship working on a digital archive of an M.D.'s sketches of his patients. (I won't go into the patient confidentiality issues, and suffice it to say, the flickr archive is viewable only to those with an invite.) But, the purpose of this digital archive was to

• archive a digital image of the original
• have a copy saved in another location (i.e. a server, presumably in CA, not AL)
• (at some point) make these sketches available to the public
  

How I foresee using my account:
Right after Hurricane Katrina I told myself I was going to upload all my pics (at least the good ones) onto flickr to have a backup archive in case of fire, flood, widescale evacuation... well, I haven't gotten very far, but I still intend to upload my pics.

I should add that I know that this isn't a perfect archive (the resolution is web-quality, not publication-quality; there's no guarantee flickr'll be around in later years; technology changes fast and what I can access now I may not be able to access later; etc.) but for now at least its an option. Plus I can share my photos with my friends and family -- particularly nice considering Chris has our digital camera and if I can't be with him all the time, at least I can have glimpses into his travels.

What I like about Flickr:
One of the aspects that I really like about flickr is that you can use tags to describe photos. The innate cataloger in me loves to label everything so that I can easily type in a word or two and voila! there's the item(s).

I also dig being able to keep up with my friends through their photos, particularly when most of my friends are now, like, 6 states away. I can still see their kids, attend their weddings, check out the newest finds/houses/pets/etc. And to top it off, I can post comments about their images. I can say if I like that pic, comment about how old their kids look (or how old they look) ;) and/or provide my own memory of an event. How neat is that! It's like a virtual scrapbook, only you are opening it up for everyone to see and providing them an opportunity to add their thoughts/memories/stories as well. Do you think perhaps that's a way the VHS could market or reach out to patrons?

Well... curious about my flickr page? Check it out by searching for Katherine Wilkins (don't forget to search by my name under the People tab and not the Photos tab, which is the default tab).