As we saw in the Rethlefsen article you read regarding Delicious, tagging not only relies on a controlled use of vocabulary; we simply use the words we think best describe the item in order to bring that item up in a search later on.
Let’s say you have a lot of photos of activities that have happened in your library. Some of those photos you might want to post to the library web page, some you might want to use in creating information brochures, and some you might want to use in blogs. In any case, after 2 or 3 library events, you are going to have a hard time finding just the right photo (like our example with web sites and Delicious). By saving the photos to the web and then tagging the photos, you will have a safe place to store the images and an easy way of retrieving them!
Our good friends at Commoncraft have created a short clip describing the art of tagging. Take a look at the clip before moving on:
Using Flickr: Howcast shows us how to use Flickr, the photo sharing site we will need to have photos uploaded to so we can tag them. You might need to wait for a commercial to play out before the video starts:
Let's set up a Flickr account. While we have set up a Flickr account for this project (info on that later) for this activity, you should set up your own account. Make sure in doing this, you set up a new account and you DO NOT merge your account with the one for this project. We will be using the general project account for the other activities.
To see how tagging works, go to Flickr but don’t login. In the search bar, type kevin henkes. Notice you get about 9 pages of results. Here is the screen shot for the first page (please note: the screen shot was taken June 1, 2010, so what you see may vary slightly:)
Click on any of the pictures and you will see to the right of the image a “Tags” list that includes either “Kevin Henkes” on one line or as two separate tags: “Kevin” and “Henkes” as shown in this example:
Click on the first picture Lake Mendota, Madison, WI. Doing this brings up the picture so we can see it more clearly and, as with Kevin Henkes’ pictures, shows us the tags that have been assigned to the picture. Let’s play with the tags a little by clicking on any of them and seeing where they lead.
Now click on the Mendota tag. Notice that by doing this, it brings up all of the pictures in our Photo Stream with the same tag. Now follow the link see public content tagged with Mendota. Notice that it takes you beyond Lake Mendota in Madison, Wisconsin. If you were not signed into the account, you would not see our pictures on the pages of results because the pictures are marked as private.
Creating Tags: You saw from the activity that tagging is like keyword searching. That is, we found all picture available to the public that had the tag Mendota regardless of whether the picture was Lake Mendota in Wisconsin or Mendota, Minnesota. It could even have been a person’s name!
Take another look at our first picture. The tags for this picture are pretty good but you might be able to think of other terms that fit this picture as well. To add more tags to a picture, simply type in a word in the bar below the tags and click Add. There’s your tag! To delete the tag, click the little “x” on the right of the tag word.
Think of another word for this picture and add a new tag. Go to any of the other pictures on our photo stream and practice adding tags. Try uploading your own picture and adding a tag or two! To do this, go to YOU at the top bar. At the pull down menu, you will find Upload Photos and Videos and click on that then follow the directions.
A word on privacy and photographs: We have been able to get to the Kevin Henkes photographs because the people who posted them, did not mark the photos as private. Go again to the edit tool and notice that the photos have been marked to be shown only to those with access to the account. Don’t forget about this option when posting. photos, especially when dealing with pictures of children. Privacy issues with kids in the libraries are very important to consider. Make sure you are following the rules of your library when posting pictures both to your own web site and, perhaps most importantly, to a social network.
Tagging pictures in Blogs: Once you have uploaded a picture to use in your blog, it is very easy to assign tags. Although in Blogger, the word is Labels and not Tags. As you're creating your post, there's a text box for Labels in the lower-right corner of the post. So go ahead, upload a picture and then assign some labels for it!
Happy Tagging!!
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