Make Your Own Mini Read Poster

There is now a READ Mini Poster creation tool on the American Library Association web site which lets you upload a photo into one of four templates.  This is a neat offering, with a couple of caveats:

1. The positioning tool for the picture is very limited.  I was only able to use my facebook profile picture in two of the templates, and each still didn’t look quite right.  I have been spoiled by Web 2.0 tools such as Facebook’s Pieces of Flair (note that there is a piece of Libology flair, if you are feeling desperate for library-related buttons) and expect such niceties as mouse-controlled positioning.
2. In addition, there are no terms of use listed for these creations.  Knowing that ALA limits the use of other versions of the Read posters, I assume that they would make a specific statement regarding this on the creation page.  I wasn’t even able to load their copyright statement page, so I feel forced to go with default copyright.

These reasons are why I don’t have my newly-minted READ Mini Poster shown here.  This is a great promotional idea, if they can work out how to let us use it effectively.

thanks to Karen R. Schneiderman for posting a link to the Lex Scripta blog on Facebook!

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Update: Jenny Levine, Internet Development Specialist & Strategy Guide for the ALA (and also known as The Shifted Librarian) wrote an e-mail assuring me that “these images can be used by the person generating them for use on personal or library blogs, personal profiles, or other social networking sites.”  When the ALA updates their site next week, this will be clearly spelled out, she says.

I suspect that criticism can easily sound snarky in this medium, so I will re-iterate the dominant point from above:  this is a great promotional idea for the ALA, libraries, social media, and readers.  Check it out!