The E-Sylum:  Volume 10, Number 26, July 1, 2007, Article 15

USING FLICKR AND OTHER WEB IMAGE STORAGE SITES

Dick Johnson writes: "You haven't told us enough about Flickr and the
E-Sylum Photostream. You have linked to this before -- and again last
week with photos of the Better Babies Medal by Laura Gardin Fraser --
but we need to be reminded about this valuable resource.

"It is a great idea to be able to add photos to E-Sylum text only items.
Among the ten illustrations on this site already you have color photos
and a clipping. I assume black-and-white photos are acceptable, as well
as drawings and a variety of art prints.
"But tell us how to use it. Send you the image, and you place it on
the site?  How about charts?  Is there any image that is NOT acceptable
(as long as it illustrates an E-Sylum article)?  How about color slides
and DVD discs?  How about video? Any copyright protection for photos?
Clue us in, please."

[Well, Flickr was a spur-of-the-moment experiment when I was investigating
a web-based blog publishing site.  It asked for a link to a personal photo,
and I needed someplace to put one.  Flickr is just one of many free web
sites that allow users to upload and host photographs.   I could have
used the NBS web site, but I'd forgotten how to update it since Bruce
Perdue and John Nebel have stepped up to those tasks.

Sites like Flickr require no webmaster tools or special access - anybody
can create an account and manage their photos through an easy-to-use web
interface.  It's just the right way to go in 2007. Once I had a Flickr
account in place (which took only minutes), it was easy to add new
photos when I wanted to link to them in an E-Sylum issue.

Early on I made the decision that The E-Sylum would be text-only.  This
was for two reasons.  Primarily, it's difficult to determine image
copyrights.  While I can be confident that the text excerpts I publish
fall within the fair use provisions of the copyright laws, you can't
exactly excerpt an image - it's all or nothing.  So as much as I'd love
to include images, they involve too much uncertainty.  The second reason
is simply the effort involved, and this is partly due to personal
aptitude and preference.  I'm a Word guy, not an Image guy.  I'll
happily stay up late getting the text just right, but adjusting,
clipping, sizing, placing and captioning images just isn't my cup of tea.

When a reader emails me images for publication (such as the Fraser Better
Babies medal or President Bush's personal Challenge Coin) or when I feel
confident that the publisher wouldn't object (such as with photos in Press
Releases), AND I HAVE THE TIME, I will upload the images to Flickr.  But I
do this only rarely.   I don't want E-Sylum subscribers to start emailing
me images willy-nilly.  It's so easy to use a site like Flickr that I would
encourage any submitter who would like to include a picture to upload it
themselves and simply include the URL in your email submission to me.

If you send me a Flickr link for publication, you have to make it a PUBLIC
link, available to anyone.  If you wish to retain copyright to your image
be sure to mark it as such and be aware that anyone on the Internet could
still copy and reuse it regardless.  Any appropriate image that a site
like Flickr will host (no porn or kids under 18) is fine for inclusion
in The E-Sylum.

As for videos, sites like YouTube are fair game as well; if a public
web site will host it and you send me the URL, I'll publish it.  We have
included links to YouTube videos on at least one occasion in the past.
-Editor]

The E-Sylum Flickr Photo Archive E-Sylum Flickr Photo Archive

  Wayne Homren, Editor

	coinbooks.org Web

The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization 
promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org.

To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor 
at this address: whomren@coinlibrary.com

To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum