Saturday, June 30, 2012

Using Pinterest to archive resources

Pinterest is a content sharing service.  Users "pin" images to their "boards."  These can be shared with others in a social network.  I have been using it to organize items I find and want to refer back to both personally and professionally.  These are some of my boards:

Users are given some default boards, which can be edited or removed.  For example, I haven't found a reason for using these:
To get started with Pinterest, you need to request an invitation at pinterest.com.  I received mine a few days after my request.  Once you set up your account, you can log in with an email address or use Facebook or Twitter.
 One great feature of Pinterest is the ability to search for boards within categories.  One of the first things I did was to browse the Education boards.  In this way I even found educators whom I follow on Twitter.  I can also follow Pinners who share my interests.  Another social aspect is the ability to "repin", "like", and "comment" on others' pins.  I've found some great ideas and recipes this way.


I am a bit of an organizational junkie, so Pinterest works well for me.  I can create as many boards as I want to archive resources.  When I decide I want to save an image, article, blog post or video, I click on my "Pin It Button" which I installed easily onto my bookmark toolbar.  Along with my LiveBinders, I can keep everything archived digitally.  Here are a few pins on one of my boards:


Many of my colleagues are Pinterest users, so we have an easy way to share resources and ideas, even if we find them at 4:00 AM! The only limitation I have found is that the source has to have an image that is "pinnable."  There have been just a few times that I have received a message that the website didn't have a large enough image.  In those cases I have simply added it to a LiveBinder instead. Happy pinning!