See Sally! See Sally’s Books! Hear Sally Talk About Them! All with Flickr!

Here’s a report on another Friday afternoon Flickr experiment. 

Several weeks ago, during a Flickr training session, I was showing the class how Westmont Public Library in Illinois uses Flickr to promote their new acquisitions.  Every month they take photos of new books, videos, DVDs, etc., and they add them to Flickr.  They then add a Flickr note to each item in each picture.  The note contains a hypertext link, and when you click on the link you are taken directly to the screen in their OPAC that lists shelf status for the item.  (If you’re curious about this, take a look!)

Well, someone in class asked me if it would be possible to link to a sound file.  I hadn’t seen it done, but it certainly seemed feasible, and that’s what I told him.  His question got me thinking though.  It’s neat to link from a picture of a book to its catalog record, but wouldn’t it also be cool to link to an audio review or audio blurb?  Hmmmm….who do I know who would be willing to let me record them talking about a book?  Sally!

It’s great having colleagues who are good sports.  I mentioned my idea to Sally Snyder, Coordinator of Children and Young Adult Library Services at the Nebraska Library Commission, last Friday morning.  Not only was she willing to do it, she had some short book blurbs already written and she was free to record that afternoon!

If you’d like to see the results of our experiment, click on the picture of Sally that accompanies this blog entry.  It will take you to the image in Flickr, where you can move your mouse over each book and click on a link to hear Sally talk about it!

And as always, we’d love to know what you think!

Sally's Summer Reads
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5 Responses to See Sally! See Sally’s Books! Hear Sally Talk About Them! All with Flickr!

  1. Karin Dalziel says:

    That’s really neat! What a great way to showcase new books.

  2. Judy Grandstaff says:

    Sally, what a terrific idea. You can preview SRP books for librarians that can’t attend one of your presentations.

  3. Phyllis says:

    Fantastic idea! Congratulations on such a creative use of Flickr.
    Phyllis
    Something New Every Day

  4. Claudette Wielechowski says:

    Having Sally giving her booktalks is always great, but I was not able to hear them, when I clicked on the book. What didn’t I do right?

  5. Michael Sauers says:

    Claudette,
    When you hover your mouse pointer over a book the book’s title and author will appear as blue & underlined text in a yellow balloon (usually) under the book in the image. Click on that text to get the audio file.

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