The Library’s desire to share its images with a broader audience led to the establishment of The Commons program on Flickr.
Less than one year into the Library of Congress’s pilot project placing Library photos on the website Flickr, the photos have drawn more than 10 million views, 7,166 comments and more than 67,000 tags, according to a new report from the project team overseeing the lively project.
“The popularity and impact of the pilot have been remarkable,” said Michelle Springer, project manager for digital initiatives in the Office of Strategic Initiatives, who said total views reached 10 million in October. The site is averaging 500,000 views a month, she said, adding that Flickr members have marked 79 percent of the photos as “favorites.”
The report recommends that the Library continue to participate in The Commons and explore other Web 2.0 communities.
The pilot was launched on January 16, 2008. (See Information Bulletin, March 2008.) A comprehensive report on its results to date has been released by the project team and is available at www.loc.gov/rr/print/flickr_report_final.pdf.
A seven-page summary can be found online as well. The report details how the Flickr project (www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/) has increased public awareness of collections in the Library’s Prints and Photographs Division and sparked creative interaction with them. It has also given Library staff experience in social tagging and Web 2.0 community input and cast the Library in a leadership role for other cultural and government communities exploring Web 2.0 possibilities.
An area within Flickr called The Commons (www.flickr.com/commons/) was introduced with the Library’s project launch, and a growing number of libraries, museums, and archives have since launched their own accounts within the Commons framework. Currently 16 additional institutions from the United States, Australia, United Kingdom, Canada, France, Portugal, and the Netherlands are sharing selections from their photo archives and inviting the public to contribute information.
Experimentation has continued. Since March, 50 photos from the Bain News Service collection have been added each Friday, keeping interest fresh. Today the account offers more than 4,900 photos, including 15 panoramas related to World War I, added in remembrance of Veterans Day in a coordinated posting with other Commons members.
Left: Flickr users—including family members involved with businesses pictured—furnished Prints and Photographs staff with details on previously unidentified photos, such as this one from a restaurant in Brockton, Mass., ca. 1940. - Jack Delano. Right: This 1944 photo of a haystack and the cars of peach pickers in Delta County, Colo., led to a spirited discussion by Flickr users on the shape of the stack, the reasons to store so much hay uncovered, and the spareness of old tires. - Russell Lee
The pilot spurred many positive yet unexpected outcomes—especially Flickr members’ engagement with historical images and their willingness to devote great effort to photo-related detective work. Further, Flickr members have often drawn on personal histories to connect with the pictures, including memories of farming practices, grandparents’ lives, women’s roles in World War II, and the changing landscape of local neighborhoods.
A photo of the Sylvia Sweets Tea Room, for example, sparked a detailed and moving account from the restaurant owner’s family.
Similarly, a photo of cars parked next to a huge haystack prompted a community dialogue on the shape of the stack, the reasons to store so much hay uncovered, and the spareness of old tires. Notes in the Library’s own catalog records now lead users to the information added to Library photos on the Flickr Commons site.
With the help of the Flickr community, a photo in the Library’s Bain collection identified only as “Reid Funeral Leaving Cathedral” has been positively identified as an image of the funeral of Whitelaw Reid, American Ambassador to Great Britain, at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York on Jan. 4, 1913.
When Flickr commenters provide corrected place and proper names, more precise dates, and event names, Prints and Photographs Division staff verify the information and have used it to update more than 500 records for the Library’s catalog (with many more in the queue), citing the Flickr Commons Project as the source of the new information. For example, a photo once simply captioned, “Reid Funeral’ (http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ggbain.11208) is now more fully described with the note: “Photo shows the crowd gathered outside of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine during New York City funeral of Whitelaw Reid, American Ambassador to Great Britain (Source: Flickr Commons project, 2008).”
Other photos in the series were also correctly tagged and identified.
“Increasing the ability to engage and connect with photos increases the sense of ownership and respect that people feel for these photos,” the report states. “Lessons learned from this project provide guideposts to the type of experience that people would like to have with our collections.”
