Thing 6: Reflective Practice

Thing 3: Image Banks: Correct attribution, Pixabay and Flickr

Description and Feelings/Thoughts:

I found it valuable to read about copyright and the Creative Commons licensing system and the correct formula for attributing the source of images. However, I found the variety of attributions and slight differences between each one, somewhat confusing, so I judged the safest option is to use an image in the public domain that is free to use, such as those on Pixabay.
Flickr is busier website than Pixabay with a great variety of images, which can be easily searched and search results filtered by copyright restriction. I would have preferred not to have to create an account to use the site, 'though I did so, and uploaded an image to my Flickr account very easily. (See my blog post on Thing 3 for the link)

Evaluation and Analysis:

I found the Pixabay website very easy to use and to find, copy and save images, and I copied images into my blog and used a Halloween image on the Wexford Library facebook page to notify the public of our Halloween opening hours. However, the selection of images is very generic, relatively limited, and American-centric, so there is not a great variety of images for Irish-specific topics. I liked that you didn't need to set up an account to use Pixabay.
Flickr has a larger bank of images and greater facility to filter searches of images by photos, people and groups, and by orientation, size, date, colour etc. So if you were using images a lot and were willing to spend the extra time to find an image that exactly suited your purpose, it would probably yield better results than Pixabay.

Conclusion:

In Pixabay, more browse time might throw up more and better image options. I will use it again. It is a useful and 'copyright safe' tool that is quick and easy to use.
Flickr is more social, and being able to follow other libraries is interesting, but I find it a bit like facebook, with a lot of self-promotion, wedding photos etc. Also I could see a lot of time being spent searching for the perfect image on Flickr, when an adequate image could be found on Pixabay for a fraction of the time. It could be a useful tool for promoting library events and stock, but photo permission is always an issue when sharing photos taken of people in the library, particularly when children are involved.