Library of Congress uses Web 2.0 to build awareness of historical images

Matt Raymond, Director of Communications at the Library of Congress, had a brilliant idea. Instead of making the public come to the LOC Web site to look at historical images, why not make the pictures go to where people who love photography live -- on Flickr.

Recently, the LOC posted more than 3,000 of its images on to a Flickr site called The Commons. Raymond hopes that traffic to the site will generate interest and information for the LOC collection, which now holds 14 million images.

LOC caption reads: Color guard of Negro engineers, Ft. Belvoir(?), [Va.]

Although anyone can view the pictures, Flickr members have access to post comments and add tags that will help make identifying the images better. 

According to Flickr:

There are two main aims to The Commons project, starting with the pilot: firstly, to increase exposure to the amazing content currently held in the public collections of civic institutions around the world, and secondly, to facilitate the collection of general knowledge about these collections, with the hope that this information can feed back into the catalogues, making them richer and easier to search.

The idea of taking this collection to the Web 2.0 is not only good for the LOC is a terrific public relations strategy.  As Raymond notes:

The real magic comes when the power of the Flickr community takes over. We want people to tag, comment and make notes on the images, just like any other Flickr photo, which will benefit not only the community but also the collections themselves. For instance, many photos are missing key caption information such as where the photo was taken and who is pictured. If such information is collected via Flickr members, it can potentially enhance the quality of the bibliographic records for the images.

Caption Reads: Delano, Jack (1914-1997)
Children gathering potatoes on a large farm, vicinity of Caribou, Aroostook County, Me. Schools do not open until the potatoes are harvested. Oct. 1940.

There are more than 40 comments for the image above, which suggests that niche communities as Flickr become unified around images that share commonalities or historical significance. Many of the comments share life experiences related to rural American life and having to work as children.

Just by looking at several of the images and the comments they generate suggests that the LOC objectives in posting the images is very effective.

 

Comments

[Steven Davies]

With so many new images the traffic to this website will increase in minutes.
I am sure!