Projects for Image Preservation & Sharing
> Projects for Community Historical Societies
Building a Shutterfly Historical Society Share Site
Sharing digital photos and other images online is both free and easy. Short of a dedicated web address and total control over how a website is designed, share sites provided by some online printers are very powerful and flexible.
Based on my research, I believe that
Shutterfly.comoffers
the best overall free share site. These share sites offer a way to
share images, store them for free as backups, communicate through
message boards, coordinate society events, and many other useful
customizations. If a society already has a robust web site, it
probably will not establish a share site as well. However, if a society has
a modest presence on a town website or another sub-domain, the society
may want to expand its web information on a share site and provide a
link to the expanded offering from the current location. Some societies
have also used share sites to augment a website by taking advantage of Shutterfly's easy to use image galleries and other interactive features
available in a share site.
You can preview the service by using the link to the right. This article offers step by step share site tips and suggestions to help you get up and running quickly and with the least effort.
We suggest that you follow these simple steps and ask yourself a few questions before you proceed.
1. How do you intend to use the share site? Is the site simply going to allow the sharing of photos and other images? Perhaps, it will be the society's focal point for scheduling events and meetings, scheduling and tracking projects, communicating exhibit hours and locations, or other uses you develop over time. These share sites are flexible and powerful enough to serve as a society's primary website. Note that share sites have "members" and "guests" and each will have different comment and update permissions. This allows you to control the content in certain sections closely, while also making the share site very participative.
A historical society share site can also provide a link to a separate online image gallery where prints and gift items can be priced to serve as a fund raiser for the society. See LocalArchiver's article on Marketing Collection Images as a Fund Raising Activity.
2. Now that you have considered some of these questions, pick a preliminary name for the share site. The share site you build will be accessed as //yoursitename.shutterfly.com. Therefore, selecting a name that is descriptive, easy to remember, and relatively short can help you and future members and potential guests find the share site.
3. Now make a visit to the LocalArchiver's Sample Historical Society Share Site at Shutterfly to see how flexible you can be in your design.
4. Assemble some images that you would like to use for your share site in a folder on your desktop. These images will be used in the header of your site, and elsewhere throughout your site wherever you choose to place them. You will upload the images in the desktop folder as a new Shutterfly album, and can then selectively place as many images as you want into your share site.
You do need to be aware of potential copyright issues whenever images are displayed on the internet, whether at shutterfly, on a dedicated society website, or elsewhere. This should not be a great concern as society's typically have the appropriate rights to many images, and many images in collections are in the "public domain" with no restrictions. If you are not familiar with copyright basics, I suggest you read our article on Copyright Considerations When Sharing Images.
5. Sign up for the service at Shutterfly.com.
6. Once in your new site, explore all "options" drop down menus, "add other sections..." invites at the bottom of each column, and the "add pages" invite at the top of the page. This will give you a good feel for how the sample share site was customized.
7. Now click on "change picture" in one of the photos at the top of the page. If you have uploaded an album, you can simply find the picture you want and then "edit picture" to adjust its size and position. If you have not yet uploaded an album, you will be walked through that process.
8. Note that you can change the order of sections, delete them, and start over without much difficulty. However, it can be useful to give some planning to what you want to include in your site, in what order, and on what page before you begin in earnest. This can save you some time.
9. If you are designing a share site for a historical society and believe you may want to share images more broadly and fundraise by selling images at a markup, read our article on Marketing Historical Society Images as a Fund Raising Activity.
Good luck with your share site, you should be sharing images and communicating with site members and guests in no time.
