Creative commons....

I've never really looked too deeply into creative commons before although we do sometimes have questions from library users about where to find images and if they can be used in their posters/reports/presentations etc. I've pointed people to Flickr in the past.....now I know there are loads more to choose from and what the different creative commons licenses there are.
I liked Google images but maybe that's because I use Google chrome quite a lot so know how to search using advanced search etc. My images is below (both free to use and modify for commercial purposes).....nothing to do with libraries but reminds me of my holiday in Scotland last year. I do have a soft spot for a Highland Coo!:

Hairy Coo

I didn't find Wikimedia Commons as easy to use but the following image I liked and it is from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Public Health Image Library:

MRSA

I liked that you can download it in different resolutions or there are quick links to adding it a webpage or emailing it.

Browsers!

Well, I'm running a week or two behind due to work being a bit hectic so have only just got round to doing Thing 6 & 7.....

Browsers: I regularly user Chrome at work and at home and probably on my mobile as it's an Android. I do sometimes use Firefox at home to just for a bit of variety! I find Chrome and Firefox are much faster than IE8 (the standard at work) although there are some work things that don't open properly on Chrome so IE8 is still used from time to time and vice versa. I think they are all much of a muchness if I'm honest. They all have similar features: tabbed browsing, bookmarks/favourites, history etc. although some features are easier to find in some browsers than in others (Chrome has the funny 3 line symbol/button next to to search bar which contains all the bookmarks and history and other settings which can take a while to navigate and find what you want). I've found importing favourites from IE to Chrome and Firefox is nice and straightforward :o)
I might try a couple of the others at home and see what they're like.....

So far....

Week 3 in the 19Things programme (said in the best Big Brother house voice).

So far I've discovered Wordle which I'd never heard of before and, I have to admit, I love it!  I've seen this used in presentations and on posters and liked the look of it, very eye-catching.  I found it very easy to use and the instructions were clear as were the terms and conditions of use although I was a little disappointed at the colour selections.  I'm hoping I can utilise it to revamp some of our library displays/posters.

I knew about QR codes before and have created some for our library leaflets and posters that link to various parts of our website pages. My colleague has also used them to link to reading lists we've set up on our library catalogue so students can scan the list they want and they get taken to a list of all the books we have that are on that reading list. I'm currently creating some to display on the shelves that link to the e-books we've purchased. I also use http://tinyurl.com to shorten some of these long address so that the QR code is less complicated and more easily read by some older or less fancy smartphones. The QR code generator we use is http://goqr.me

Hope you're having fun with these too!

NEW!

Hello fellow library peeps!

Hope you are all good. I'm finding the blog thing a little weird, I was never a diary writer so putting my thoughts etc. down in print feels a little odd. Does anyone else feel the same? Maybe it's just me? :-/

Anyhoo, here's where I'll write about the 19Things and what I think about them....