(Before I get started, I want to give a shout-out to the inspiration for this post, Allison V. Smith’s posting about the Commons. Thanks, Allison!)I think I’ve mentioned the Flickr Commons before. As a matter of fact, I have. Check this post out:
New Fun Photos from the Library of Congress
Well, it’s not just the Library of Congress sharing their images and such on flickr, 44 major cultural institutions are contributing to the Commons. You can see the list here. I love that these institutions are showing some leadership in digitization - and what a great way to digitize. All you really have to do is scan and upload, and flickr takes care of the rest.
And what advantage does this have over simply cataloging the images, you might ask? Well, it allows people to examine them and (in the case of the photos in the Commons as they are public domain) re-use them in different works. It gives people from far away the ability to view your library/institution’s holdings. However, following the idea of participatory librarianship, if one could track what people “do” with these images (if they reuse them, or adapt/incorporate them) what a wonderful way to show the relevancy of what it is that you are doing (digitizing and sharing) and how your collection is reaching a wider audience than those in the immediate geographic vicinity. Imagine if someone used one of your images for, say, a billboard in Miami? With the proper crediting, what cool exposure for your library!
Anyhow, here are some of my favorite images from the Commons, and pleace click on the image to see where I “got it” from. I made a “gallery” on flickr of them with my comments, and you can check that out here:
Best of the Commons, A Gallery.
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