Flickring in Academic Libraries

I love flickr – but mostly for personal reasons.  When it comes to using flickr in my professional life, however, I find its usefulness just slightly limiting, but here are some thoughts anyway.  As discussed in this week’s material, flickr can definitely be used as a training tool and for some information literacy purposes.  I think for the most part, tutorial software would do the job better, especially for database instruction, but I feel flickr would be an excellent tool for showing incoming students the basics of using the library – a photo-tour of the building, how to locate a book/journal and borrow it, how to locate and use the photocopiers, how to use the microfilm machines and print, etc. etc.  Flickr could also be instrumental in creating a sense of “community” around the library – a flickr group to which students, faculty and staff could contribute photos that would be shared through a feed to our website (see what the University of Manitoba is doing with their Virtual Learning Commons – this site will be interesting to Five Weeks folks on so many levels, but scroll down to the bottom for their flickr photo feed).  Besides this, have you searched flickr for photos pertaining to your library?  I have – it’s very enlightening to see what folks find interesting about your library and the dialogue that takes place around these photos.