We’re delighted to welcome you to the new Indicommons blog, celebrating The Commons and all that’s possible in it.

On January 16, 2008, the Library of Congress uploaded over 3,000 photographs to Flickr under the experimental “no known copyright restrictions” licence, and The Commons was born. The LOC received a huge welcome, not only in views but in unique tags, comments, and notes added by Flickr members. Less than a year later, 17 internationally renowned libraries, museums, and archives have joined the project, and more are set to join in the near future.

The numbers alone speak for themselves (and you can find more in our About page), but while participating institutions have benefited from this fresh exposure of their collections and have amassed heaps of new information contributed by Flickr members, many of us feel it is we who are the greatest beneficiaries. The Commons has allowed the Flickr community to demonstrate our shared passion for photography and our joy at being able to contribute to making these archival photos more available to others. Quite simply, many of us have fallen in love with The Commons.

The Flickr group Flickr Commons was born out of one fan’s desire to show her support for The Commons.  Anna Graf’s creation of this group also answered new needs, ones that hadn’t been spoken: it created a home for all those people commenting, tagging, researching, and simply enjoying themselves — somewhere to bring them all together to share their passion for The Commons. They turned up — not only regular Flickr members like us but also Commons institution staff and Flickr staff — full of ideas and enthusiasm and passion to do amazing things, and committed to actually doing them.

Indicommons (“in de commons”) arose quickly out of this new group. We wanted to let not just Flickr members but everyone know how exciting The Commons is. Today on Indicommons you’ll find an interview with the Brooklyn Museum’s Shelley Bernstein, plus examples of members’ choices from the collections, group member research into an individual photograph, then and now subcuration, and cross-Commons mash-ups – just a sampling of what we know is possible and what you’ll find here.

And as you read this, we’re preparing what’s next on Indicommons, beginning tomorrow: We’re interviewing more Commons institution staff, for “behind the scenes” views of The Commons and what it means within their institutions, and Commons users, such as teachers using The Commons in the classroom; we’re developing new ways of accessing and interacting with Commons images; we’re writing about the larger meaning of The Commons. Plus we’ll bring you Commons news, institution profiles, and highlights from the fascinating explorations by Flickr Commons group members.

So come play in The Commons with us! Whether you work for a Commons museum or archive, get a kick out of doing a bit of research in your spare time, dream of creating your own museum exhibitions, or even just love looking through shoeboxes of old photographs (and what a shoebox this is!) – The Commons belongs to you.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 7th, 2009 at 4:45 am and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.