I have started week 8 on the #23things course a day early. I am in a Halloween mood and the digital curation project seems like an ideal place to combine some course activity with weekend fun. This week has two parts, first on digital curation, which I am focusing on, then also digital note-taking. As I do that quite regularly I am not going to go into it, but there’s plenty to discover on my first look at Tumblr following the brief to find Tumblr blogs I like and to share them. So here goes: I started searching for things near me, which led me to the Bodleian Libraries account. From what I can see there are frequent posts, a mix of images, short articles and useful information. I really like the visual aspect of this account. Searching for libraries led me to discover a ‘Vintage Libraries’ account where I spent quite a bit of time searching through the archive by decade, having a look at the ‘Vermont Book Wagon’ for example. Looking through this made me wonder how images are licenced on Tumblr, and in the case of this particular blog, I found the following statement: “None of the photos are mine. I’ll always state the original link from where I took the pictures, unless I do not find the original source. If you know the source from any those pictures, please let me know.” . That took me back to thinking about copyright and the previous things we have explored on this course.
Sticking with the literary theme, but also with Halloween in mind, I started looking for authors whom I like and found busy posts by Neil Gaiman. This includes all kinds of random content and it was interesting to compare how this relates to for instance Twitter posts, where I follow the same author. I am not sure whether I would find using Tumblr more useful or appealing, but it’s interesting to explore a new platform. Sticking with the Halloween thread I started looking for themed posts and came across a post that linked directly to Instagram, another platform that I don’t use. Given that it was a drawing of pumpkins and cats, I was interested – but after some more exploring I decided that I had enough.
So, in addition to the ’23 things’ things I was exploring, I am now thinking about how alien social media platforms can feel when you don’t use them or have no familiarity to draw on. While earlier weeks looked at platforms I knew well, this week has made me consider what I could use tools like Tumblr, Instagram or Storify for. Storify I come across regularly for tweet chats or conferences, so there seems more of an obvious use for it, but it’s curious to discover a wealth of content in new places that I didn’t come across before. And it’s a useful reminder that it’s necessary to try new things even if I don’t end up using them day to day.