Pinterest as a Tool: Applications in Academic Libraries and Higher Education.

Pinterest as a Tool: Applications in Academic Libraries and Higher Educatio...: EBSCOhost

     This article is written by librarians from the University of Regina in Canada.  They describe how they launched a Pinterest account for their library and discuss some issues regarding copyright and Pinterest.  Turns out that there is a script certain websites, such as Flickr, Etsy, and Kickstarter, can use to prevent images from that website from being repinned.  Other companies, such as Penguin Books and Random House have encouraged the repinning of their book covers because it acts as free promotion for their products.  The library encourages pinners to evaluate copyright before repinning.

     While I understand the importance of copyright, I feel like because Pinterest is used to share ideas, it acts as a promotional feature.  Companies are creating Pinterest accounts because they WANT others to repin their material.  I feel like in general, pinners are pretty safe from copyright, unless they go a round about way to add an image to an imageless site to be repinned.  (like I did.)  But even here, one just needs to make sure that the image they use is licensed for reuse.

Hansen, K., Nowlan, G., & Winter, C. (2012). Pinterest as a Tool: Applications in Academic Libraries and Higher Education. Partnership: The Canadian Journal Of Library & Information Practice & Research, 7(2), 1-11.