While enjoying my vacation I came across this interesting little read about how the Library of Congress is now offering some of their photo collections online via Flickr. Being a big fan of flickr this was a plus but after more thought I realized that at $24.95 a year for a pro account plus the multitude of services offered through flickr (many I use) this has got to be a major savings or?
"Offering historical photograph collections through Flickr gives the Library of Congress a welcome opportunity to share some of our most popular images with a new visual community.
We invite you to tag and comment on the photos, and we also welcome identifying information—many of these old photos came to us with scanty descriptions!"
(Via Library of Congress Photos on Flickr (Prints and Photographs Reading Room, Library of Congress).)
The other great thing was the simple fact they are inviting the community to help enhance the details available with the photos. Several have some great notes already, like this interesting panoramic one.
They even have a FAQ set up around the topic.
"Q: Why is the Library placing pictures on Flickr?
A: We have several goals:
- To share photographs from the Library’s collections with people who enjoy images but might not visit the Library’s own Web site.
- To gain a better understanding of how social tagging and community input could benefit both the Library and users of the collections.
- To gain experience participating in Web communities that are interested in the kinds of materials in the Library’s collections.
With the launch of the Library of Congress pilot, Flickr began a new initiative called 'The Commons.' Cultural heritage institutions that join The Commons are sharing images from their photographic collections that have no known copyright restrictions as a way to increase awareness of these collections with the general public. For more information on The Commons, see: http://www.flickr.com/commons.
A webcast about the project is available: 'Opening the Photo Vaults: A Web 2.0 Pilot Project to Enhance Discovery and Gather Input for the Library's Photograph Collections' (presented Jan. 29, 2008)."
I think for me the underlying theme here is that we can really take advantage of simple services, e.g. a photo sharing site to achieve something grand. I personally have 17,000+ photos on the site and has I find the time I scan and upload older photos I have and eventually the plan will be to have all of my photos online in my account. Most are available only to myself or to family but from there I can easily create books, DVD's, etc. and thus be able to provide a photo journal of my life and that of my young family through the ages. This is no different than what my folks did with photo albums when I was a kid, the advantage over that though is that as the world becomes more global and you find yourselves moving more and more the books and albums become a burden (not to mention the added impact on the environment) - don't get me wrong I really enjoy siting down with those books when I have the time but I also enjoy the ability to pull up any one of my 17,000+ plus when I have the time as well.
Disclaimer - We've taken over 1600 photos in the past 3 weeks while on vacation so digital online galleries are very nice at the moment ;-)
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collaboration, community, experiment, photography
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