I'm constantly trying to find great resources for images to use academically. Images are a must for digital storytelling and presentations. All too often I see students go straight for Google Images with little or no thought about ethical use of someone else's image or the owner's Copyright policy. And you're not the only one! Too many of us are guilty of right-clicking-and-downloading without any notice of proper image usage. I myself try to make Creative Commons my go-to source for images and credit accordingly, but CC can fall short if the user-uploaded images aren't exactly what I had in mind. But the digital collection of online images has just gotten a whole lot better with the availability of these great new resources! Open access sure is exciting! American Museum of Natural History Special Collections Image Database What started as a project intended to digitize 1,000 photographs and rare book illustrations within the American Museum of Natural History's collection has blossomed into a full-on image database with over 7,000 images and growing. According to the museum, photos will date back to 19th century scientific expeditions. The 7,000 photos are merely a sliver of the museum's collection (about 1%!) so I expect this archive to grow dramatically over time. Click here to view the collections on the homepage or begin a search. Metropolitan Museum of Art Over 400,000 high resolution images from the MoMa's world-renowned art collection are now available in digital format, announced the museum director and CEO Thomas P. Campbell two weeks ago. The images are available for download directly from the website given that they are used noncommercially. The number of images will increase regularly as the museum works towards digitizing their entire encyclopedia collection of art. Click here to view the collection and test different search strategies. Getty Images New Embed Tool And that's not all. You know all of those often terribly generic stock photos that are used alongside news articles or blog posts when the author didn't bother to take their own photos? Just about every stock photo is owned by Getty, and users have always had to pay to access Getty's image catalog. Not anymore! As long as you are using Getty's images noncommercially (as in not making money off it), you now have the ability to directly embed a Getty image player onto your webpage or presentation, with full copyright information included automatically with a link to the full licensing page. So how many photos are we talking here? 35 million. The link to a search of all embedded images is here. All this news came directly from one of my favorite info literacy blogs, The Never Ending Search. Will you be exploring any of the new free, open source digital collections above? For help using these sources or finding the right place to search for images, see me!
-Ms. McCall
0 Comments
And exploring LibraryThing! Because we have a number of new books purchased through Junior Library Guild before Mrs. Deegan left, I wanted to showcase these titles virtually without having to wait for the cataloging software (which may not make its way to us until summer, but ought to be up and running come September 2014!). This is where LibraryThing comes into the picture. Click "Read more" on the right to view the full blog post and the LibraryThing Bookshelf widgets.
Getting organizedAfter operating without an automated cataloging system for quite some time, the Library@LCHS Circulation desk became backed up with books in all sorts of disarray. On my second day in the space, there was no way I was going to make it another hour without managing the chaos. The student library aides were a huge help in clearing out the library office and began moving on to tackling shelving today. I separated books into three categories: not processed, partially processed and fully processed. The fully processed books were moved to a cart on the floor to be shelved by aides and the other books are being kept behind the desk for further processing. Amidst the organization fury, I came across new professional titles that hadn't made it into the collection (differentiation and instructional technology galore!) as well as hot, new fiction titles that hadn't made their way to the shelves yet. The new titles include More Than This by Patrick Ness (which I'm in the middle of right now!) and The Living by Matt de Pena - that's been on my reading list all year. It will be great to really get this space cleared out and the collection out on the shelves so everyone can access them, but first we've got to bring in new software. I'm not sure how much of a voice I will have in the purchasing decision, but I would really like to see a great web-based OPAC system such as Follett (have you seen the new Universal Search? It's going to change the face of Follett & Titlewave!) or MassCat, which would give us access to collections at other schools too. In the more distant future, I hope the district will use one cataloging host so by high school students will be well versed in searching for materials. We'll see what happens! -Ms. McCall
So you read The Fault in Our Stars... Now what?If you've visited the library recently, you might have noticed a new display on the left hand side of the space, where the fiction books are. With the upcoming movie adaptation of John Green's The Fault In Our Stars (that everybody has been talking about!), we now have books on display that would appeal to readers who love Hazel and Gus, love romantic contemporary fiction and especially readers who love witty, comedic writing. The books and brief blurbs are on the lower shelf tops.
Which book will you be reading next? My personal favorite of this display is Chopsticks by Jessica Anthony and Rodrigo Corral because the story is told visually through a variety of multimedia formats including photographs, letters and video stills. Check it out! -Ms. McCall |