#77 Images

photo by Matthew McDermott of the New York Post


Library staff and customers alike often need images to use in their work. When images are utilized to promote a web site, event, or business, it's important to insure that the owner of the original material has given permission to use it. Fastidious laws that protect the use of images may seem tiresome, but protecting the rights of creators and their creations for the most part encourages new ideas, fair trade, and sharing.

There are three main types of images that are available online: public domain images, right protected images, and royalty free images. Public domain images are free, and right protected images are purchased for a certain length of time. iStockPhoto and Fotolia are sites where you may purchase royalty-free images. Royalty free means that once you "buy" the image, it may be used indefinately and without limit.

There's a press release on the Fotolia site which states that "sales of $1 images continued to generate six-figure incomes for the world’s top photographers in 2009". That's incredible! (And it's caused me to consider sharing my images with the world.)

10 places to find free images online has more information and links to many online image banks. For example, bigphoto.com is a royalty free photo bank which offers free downloads of all pictures. To credit the photographer, the user is asked simply to provide a link back to the website. bigphoto.com is where you can find "pictures from around the world", but frankly I found the site disappointing. They had pictures from only 5 of Africa's 53 countries. 51 pictures are available for "Egypt", which seems like really slim pickings. I proceeded to look for pictures under the heading "America". Did they have a picture of Slim Pickens? Nope. In my opinion, this site was not the bomb.




(If I credit wikipedia for this picture, have I followed the rules?)

On the other hand, MorgueFile.com has an absolutely incredible collection of images. The images are free, but cannot be published "on a standalone basis". I'm not sure what that means. I don't even have to post an attribution, but I linked back to the site anyway, just because I want to acknowledge the person who is allowing me to add this butterfly to my blog. Beautiful!







I used AllFreeClipArt and found a picture of a Santa Mouse in 4 clicks. With 7 clicks I found a Santa that looked like he hadn't slept in a week. I suppose it has it's uses, but after seeing what's available on morguefile.com, the clip art wasn't very exciting.

HCPL subscribes to Schools.clipart. Staff may use this resource to create posters, flyers, bulletin boards, and other materials suitable for an educational environment. The site doesn't just contain line drawings and cartoonish pictures; it offers illustrations, photos, 3d clip art, and signart. If I was making a children's display for Chinese New Year, I might use this image of a cat.






Image courtesy of JupiterImages

#76 Sound Effects. Oh boy, a new toy!

Every kid who grows up watching cartoons understands the value of sound effects. Good sound effects make any story more real, more believable, more funny. From scrambling feet to kabong!, unique sounds add punch to theatre, radio, and television. Thanks to streaming audio, file compression, and musical instrument digital interface, now sounds can even be used to spice up the written word.

An example of a site where one can search for sounds is FindSounds. Another useful resource is Simply the Best Sounds.

Here is a sample of some sounds from FindSounds:

bull moose

barred owl

camel

I was not successful in finding out what sounds a real tasmanian devil makes. The first page of search results all sounded like this.

These are from Simply the Best Sounds:
gong

evil laugh

ocean waves

#75: Google and Beyond, or Desperately Seeking Search Engine Supremacy

I've been using Google as a Search Engine for quite some time, with generally good results. At least, I've always thought I was perfectly happy with Google as a Search Engine. I surely didn't give much thought to the notion that my bias for searching in a particular way could be limiting my results. Then Microsoft conducted a study which revealed that Search Engine branding has an impact on the perceived quality of results. Enter Michael Kordahi, a Microsoft employee. He created a website called "BlindSearch" in response to the study.

When you enter a search query on BlindSearch, you get results from the three most popular Search Engines: Google, Bing, and Yahoo, but you don't know whose results are whose. After viewing the responses to the search, you can vote for the set which you feel best supplied the information you were seeking, and thus learn which Search Engine best served your needs.

I tried a few queries through BlindSearch and, taking into consideration my opinion about the relevancy of the results, cast my votes. Most often, Google came up as the Search Engine I preferred. Bing was second and Yahoo was third. Performance-wise, after four tries, I didn't notice any huge differences between the Search Engines, but there were a few surprises, such as when a search for the most popular books of 2009 through what turned out to be Bing returned a link to a website for books that "explain Buddhism for a modern western audience". It was interesting to try and imagine what exactly happened to that request in cyberspace.

Trying different Search Engines, without knowing their brands ahead of time, probably won't change the way I search in the future, but it did teach me to be aware of Search Engine branding bias.

Hitwise is a website which tracks the volume of traffic to various websites and ranks them by frequency of hits. For the week ending 01/02/2010, Search Engine usage was ranked as follows: Google 64.05%, Yahoo!Search 10.96%, and Bing 8.91%. Google is the most popular Search Engine by far, which jives with my personal choice of a favorite.

It was a real eye-opener exploring Google's features. I didn't know that you could do mathematical calculations in the Google search box, automatically convert measurements (like centimeters to inches or kilometers to miles), instantly find local businesses by zip code, read a Tip of the Day, and much more. With so many ways to improve your searches, it's no wonder Google is extremely popular. I found the sheer number of features a little overwhelming; they have so much stuff to strut! The Google Search Engine reminds me of:





It is a blue-ribbon Mummer's band of Search Engines, elaborate and fancy and fun. With all there was to explore, I didn't spend as much time sifting through the features of the other Search Engines. I noticed that Bing, though, had an absolutely gorgeous home page today, displaying an exquisite photograph of a secluded beach in Greece. Maybe Bing is politely promoting the quest for Nirvana this week. They don't seem to realize that, on New Year's Day at least, some people's idea of ecstasy is being in Philadelphia, at Broad and City Hall, watching the string bands.