You know what they say about pictures and words.

A JPEG paints 1024 words.
A JPEG paints 1024 words.

Instagram

I run an Instagram account in my school library at the moment (although, I must confess, I have neglected it since the summer holidays. I must rectify that this week). I tweet pictures of new stock, author visits, events and random bits of loveliness that I find in the library.

I have yet to fully engage in the medium and the Instagram community, though. I tend to feel a little overwhelmed with the juggling act of staying on top of Twitter and Instagram as well as trying to run a busy school library. I have started tweeting a picture of a book every day from our Black History Month display - that seems like a perfect thing to bring to Instagram. I will get on that ASAP.

My main issue with Instagram is that since Facebook took over, it no longer integrates as well with Twitter. It used to embed the images within tweets - now it just posts a link, and you have to leave Twitter to view the image. Grumble over.

Click the images to visit the school's Instagram page.

Instagram Triptych
Instagram Triptych - left to right: braided bookmarks; new books; Chris Riddell visit.

Flickr

I used to work for East Sussex County Council Library Service, who use Flickr to digitise and publish pictures that would otherwise languish in the archives. The images they post come from their collections historical photographs and magic lantern slides.

They have disabled the sharing option on their photos so I can't embed any in this post, but you can browse the photostream. They have also managed to raise funds through their use of Flickr - you can buy prints of any of the pictures from their stream, which has proved to be a very popular feature.

I have been thinking of setting up a Flickr (or some other photo storage) account for my school library. Hopefully this Thing will push me into actually doing it.