443 images made up the slideshow from the fantastic inaugural community-curated event, Common Ground; users voted for their favorites images from each of the (then) 27 Commons’ institutions.

Indicommons’ blog editor Stephanie Fysh exclaims,

The George Eastman House event was small but well-fed (Rochester has the best sandwich place *EVER*) and intimate in a good way. Loved meeting *so many* of the people who make GEH work!

Media Coverage

• Projecting a Northwest Image – Corvallis Gazette-Times on the Oregon State University event
• Projections of the Past – ABC Sydney on the Powerhouse Museum event.
• Common Ground i St Karin – helagotland.se on the Swedish National Heritage Board event.
• Promo piece from Effie Kapsalis of the Smithsonian Institution (thanks, Effie!).
• Promo piece from the Collections Australia Network.

Photographs from various Common Ground events:

We had terrible weather so we relocated to the courtyard cafe but the meetup was great. – Paula Bray, Powerhouse Museum.

Getting ready for Common Ground

But that didn’t stop people from having a good time with their cupcakes! Great night, good to meet up with fellow minded photographers. – Sutto 007

Cupcakes

Common Ground: thank you Flickr community – a blog post by Paula Bray of the Powerhouse Museum.

Commons babycakes

Flickr’s Dan Bogan showed up for their event – Nom Nom Nom!

Listening

Oregon State University Archives has a few sets of photos up about the event, including many pink and blue ball sightings!

Dot head Doug next to the dots…

A huge shout-out to Ryan Donahue of George Eastman House for developing the voting application and creating the Powerpoint slideshow presentation for the event! Congratulations to all the institutions who hosted the first global community-curated Commons event and to all the supporters.

You can view the photographs selected for Common Grounds right here on our blog at the Common Ground 2009 page. You can also view the show directly on Flickr in full screen here.

Photos and videos from arkland_swe, Powerhouse Museum, sutto 007, Paul Hagon, waferbaby, Brooklyn Museum and the Oregon State University Archives.

The Commons is busting with activity with various institutions preparing for Common Ground! You’ve got until 16 September 2009 to VOTE.

Heard around and about The Commons:

• The Commons: Using the Web to Unlock Little Mysteries of the Past, is a very good write-up by Philip Bump, a technology and communications consultant in New York City. He illustrates the article with an example from the Commons.
• A History of Our Own, Representing Communities and Identities on the Web (SAA09: Session 202), a summary of Andrew Flinn’s session at the Society of American Archivists’ recent conference, by Jeanne Kramer-Smyth. She wraps the Commons into her final thoughts about the session.
• Did you know that the Getty Museum has audio tours you can listen to on your mobile phone? Check this one out.
• Smithsonian Museum Day is Saturday, 26 September 2009! Enjoy free general admission for you and a guest to hundreds of museums and cultural venues throughout the United States.
• How did you witness history on September 11, 2001? Share your story with the Smithsonian Institute’s September 11: Tell Your Story.
• Take This Job & Shoot It! by Catherine Shteynberg, Smithsonian Photography Initiative, discusses photography and the documentation of labor through the years.
• Here Comes the Revolution? Marvin Heiferman, Smithsonian Photography Initiative, reports on the new open source initiative for photographic technology that’s happening at Stanford University.
• The Powerhouse Museum is preparing a new exhibition From Earth to the Universe with Photographic Astronomer David Malin, featuring photographs showcasing the beauty and mystery of our Universe. Catch the previews on their blog.
• The new high-definition restoration of The Wizard of Oz was made possible in part because of George Eastman House’s safekeeping of the original materials!
• There is still time to check out the Field Museum’s Water exhibition, and Marisa Naujokas, Chicago Environmental Health Examiner, tells you why you should visit. Hurry! It closes 20 September 2009.
• The hugely popular and inspirational BP Portrait Award returns to Edinburgh and to the National Galleries of Scotland, beginning 12 December 2009.
• Love Letter Update, from the Australian War Memorial. Learn more about a mysterious love letter from a young French woman to her soldier sweetie.
• Here’s an Animal Mummy Update from the Brooklyn Museum.
• The National Media Museum posts their Film Guide – yay, go watch a good flick with them!
• Hey cool, the Getty has a Dorothea Lange photograph in their collection. Let’s tweet them to get that into the Commons with the other Lange images!

Overheard on Twitter

Paula Bray
A lightcycle goes down under
to visit the Powerhouse Museum

…turns out the #lightcycle has made it to Sydney where @paulabray and @erikajoy are cooking up something http://yfrog.com/5hfersj – Brooklyn Museum tweet

The Smithsonian Institution’s brand-new Secretary, Wayne Clough, discusses the prospects of the 163-year-old largest museum and research complex in the world — including the long-term future of science and education.

Heard around The Commons on Flickr:

• Flickr Commons: It was a year ago…, a summary of the National Media Museum’s first year in The Commons. “100,000s of views, 1000s of comments, and 100s of arguments over whether they were fake or real, spooky or not. “
• The National Media Museum has podcasts! Check out their interview with the screenwriter and executive producer of ITV’s new adaptation of Wuthering Heights, held prior to a preview screening of the film.
• 1stfans Twitter Art Feed Artist at the Brooklyn Museum for September 2009: Duke Riley.
• They also release a nifty application, BklynMuse, a community-powered recommendation system for the objects that are on display there!
• Read the Wall Street Journal’s take on “state-of-the-art museum tours”; they talk to Shelley Bernstein at the Brooklyn Museum. The New York Post weighs in, too.
• artdaily praises the new exhibition at the Getty Museum, Drawings by Rembrandt and His Pupils: Telling the Difference.
• The Chicago Tribune writes about the acquisition of lynching victim Emmett Till’s casket by the Smithsonian Institution.
• The SI’s National Museum of American History launched a new exhibition earlier this year, On the Water: Stories from Maritime America. They also have a Flickr group for your images of maritime activities across the United States of America.
• SI experiments with ShareTabs, a quick way to share links.
• That Picture Looks Great On You: Marvin Heiferman, Smithsonian Photography Initiative, talks about the new ubiquity of photography.
• Photos, Guns, Africa, Stanley, & Kalulu, Catherine Shteynberg, Smithsonian Photography Initiative — a story straight out of The Commons.
• Bamboo, bamboo, bamboo bamboobamboobamboobam.
• Reading War and Peace, some advice on reading this classic literature, on the New York Public Library’s blog.
• The Library of Congress announces their September film series.
• Powerhouse Museum announces their Common Ground meetup in October!
• The U.S. National Park Service celebrated their birthday on August 25th. If you couldn’t get to a park this weekend, enjoy Yosemite — it’s in The Commons!
• The State Library of Queensland, Australia, hosted Commandant Henry Miller’s descendant, Quentin Miller, at Redcliffe, which was the first European settlement in Queensland, established as the Moreton Bay Penal Colony in September 1824.
• The butcher and the grocer: A Western Front story, by the Australian War Memorial.
• Oregon State University Archives reports on the 6-month closure of the The Southern Oregon Historical Society. :””(
• They also post a nifty history of Mazamas, a climbing club in Portland, Oregon.
• And! They announce their digitized book, Oregon, a story of progress and development, together with an account of the Lewis & Clark Centennial Exposition to be held in Portland, Oregon, from June first to October fifteenth, nineteen hundred and five, available on ScholarsArchive. Dang, Tiah, that’s a mouthful!

Monday Morning Mayhem!

Mehgan Murphy/Smithsonian’s National Zoo
Burrowing Owl Babies, August 28, 2009
Smithsonian Institution’s National Zoo

The Smithsonian asked last week if the tweeples following them on Twitter could identify these newborns. They did!

The Smithsonian’s National Zoo welcomed two burrowing owl chicks Aug. 2—the first hatching of this species at the Zoo in 30 years. The chicks’ parents, a 5-year-old male and 4-year-old female, have been at the Zoo since June 2006.

The last time burrowing owls successfully bred at the National Zoo was in the late 1970s. A recent population-management plan recommended breeding the Zoo’s current adult pair. The chicks are with their parents in the Zoo’s Bird House. Currently, there is semi-transparent filter paper covering their exhibit, providing the chicks with privacy. As they become more comfortable with their new surroundings, the paper will slowly be removed.

Archival footage brought to you by the Walt Disney Imagineers. Hat tip to the Getty Museum for this great web find. I got sucked into watching the whole series just now of time-lapse photography of the building of Disneyland in Southern California, circa the 1950s.

Heard around the Commons:

• Be a Friend with Benefits! the Brooklyn Museum tells how.
• Congrats to Smithsonian Science, Voice of America’s website winner of the week!
• When Good People Love Bad Pictures, some musings on photos and the internet, by Marvin Heiferman of the Smithsonian Photography Initiative
• How to build an 8-foot-tall light bulb out of LEGO bricks, from the SI’s National Museum of American History.
• The Prisoner of Zenda – read all about George Eastman House’s newest nitrate motion-picture acquisition (with great stills, too!).
• The Swedish National Heritage Board weighs in on social media. They also discuss bicycling to work.
• The New York Public Library has some tips for midlife job hunters.
• Read all about the White Gloves Tour in the Granite Belt region at the State Library of Queensland, Australia’s blog.
• Coming Soon: DCPL Discovery Packs for SirsiDynix Libraries, from the D.C. Public Library.
• Scientist Scott A. Braun Discusses “Peering Into the Storm: NASA’s Exploration of Hurricanes” on 16 September, at the Library of Congress.
• The Oregon State University Archives brings you The Legend of Llao Rock. Also, check out the story of Mt. Mazama.
• Put The Source from the National Library of New Zealand on your reading list; it’s news about digital libraries and library innovations from around the web.
• Starting 11 September, the National Library of Wales brings us Ken Elias: A Retrospective – a celebration of 40 years of painting.

The Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition Oregon State University Archives

Let’s start the week off with a challenge! The Oregon State University Archives just added a map to their 1905 Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition set on Flickr. Anyone feel game to create a mash-up similar to what we did with the Chicago Expo? Read more about the finding of this map at OSU Archives’ blog.

• The Museum Computer Network 2009 conference is being held November 11-14 in Portland, OR. OSU Archives will present its case study of the Flickr Commons!
• Speaking of Portland, anyone know anything about some of the rose gardens there? OSU wants your help!
• Some clarifications on our experience with ‘free’ content – Seb Chan at the Powerhouse Museum responds to a question about their experience with the Flickr Commons.
• Be sure to catch his presentation schedule, too. Lots coming up.
• The 2009 National Digital Forum conference will be held November 23-24 at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Courtney Johnson at the National Library of New Zealand has information on subsidies for small organizations.
• Stacking the Tech: The Library of Congress Talks Digital Initiatives with the folks at Library Journal.
• Catch this write-up, by L’Archivista of the Building, Managing and Participating in Online Communities session at the Society of American Archivists 2009 conference.
• The American Historical Association provides a Take Two of Snapshots of the Past: The Commons on Flickr, an overview of the institutions that have joined the Commons since their first article.
• Picturing Rochester: Got photos of Rochester, New York? George Eastman House wants ‘em!
• The Powerhouse Museum has labels! And they want your visitor labels for their Odditoreum!
• The National Library of Wales has new podcasts up! Great stories of the library from folks that used to work there.
• Astrobiology: Life in Space, a webcast from the Library of Congress of Daniel P. Glavin, an astrobiologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, who says the possibility of extraterrestrial life in our solar system is not limited to Mars.
• You’ll like the preview of the D.C. Public Library’s new website!
• Read about the 50th anniversary of the closing of the Peel Island lazaret, from the State Library of Queensland, Australia.
• Not sure where to find the Smithsonian on the internet? Here’s a guide.
• The SI and the Chandra X-ray makes news about research on the birth of stars.
• Harewood House and some historic photographs of Yorkshire – a fun field trip with the National Media Museum!
• ARRRRRRRR! The Field Museum wants you to dress like a pirate!

The Brooklyn Museum Crew

Twitter was all up in arms last weeks with #dukeriley. Here’s the Brooklyn Museum’s battleship. The New York Times and WNYC explain.

A bag functions like a physical envelope that is used to send content through the mail but with bags, a user sends content from one computer to another. This video describes the preparation and transfer of data over the network in bags.

Heard around the Commons:

• Got a minute to vote for the Powerhouse Museum’s incredible Flickr Commons book? C’mon – click on over to Blurb.
• Stereo-view detail: The Powerhouse Museum gives a little background on the topic.
• All is not lost – using digital photography to recover daguerreotypes: a great preservation resource from the Powerhouse.
• Michael Feinstein comes to George Eastman House in October – get yer tickets!
• Oregon State University Archives explains their “trip to Mount Hood.”
• Are you reading the National Library of New Zealand’s Source? Every Friday, a wrap-up of things of use to digital libraries..
• Cataloging for Gold: Learn what college students have unearthed at the Library of Congress over the summer.
• Art review: The Chimaera of Arezzo at the Getty Villa: An LA Times article about happenings at the Getty Museum.
• Want to know where to stay up with the Smithsonian Institution online? card.ly can help.
• Right now in the Luce Foundation Center (Smithsonian Institution) you can borrow a Flip Mino and shoot a video of your museum visit!
• What price fame? by Marvin Heiferman, Smithsonian Photography Initiative, discusses Annie Leibovitz’s financial situation in a broader sense.
• And, Down at the Drive-In, by Christin Boggs, Smithsonian Photography Initiative, is an awesome take on the intersection of media and transportation.
• And the SI has some notes about the International Astronomical Union (IAU) meeting on their Chandra X-ray blog. Check out their 10th Anniversary post, too.
• Did Michael Jackson model face after Egyptian bust? The Chicago Sun-Times unearths some spooky stuff at the Field Museum.
• Fflur Dafydd wins £5,000 literary prize for book set at The National Library of Wales! yay!
• Plan a trip to the National Media Museum!
• Or, learn from them how to digitize motoring photographs!
• The State Library of Queensland, Australia, weighs in on conserving gilded frames in the Richard Daintree Photographic Collection.

Friday Fun!

… your welcome is assured…

History in the making, with a clip of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Happy Weekend!

• Virtuous circle – from visitor to speaker: Read about how the Flickr Commons transformed the relationship of one of the Powerhouse Museum’s guests.
• The mystery of Level One: what is happening at the Powerhouse Museum?
• What in the Powerhouse’s workshop? A telescope!
• The Brooklyn Museum releases v.1.3 of their iPhone application… and lessons learned.
• Cool – the Brooklyn Museum’s iPhone application gets a mention on the O’Reilly Radar.
• And check out their awesome Twitter profile at Beyond the Fail Whale.
• How Green These Valleys Were: Some info about the Library of Congress’s recent uploads to the Commons.
• Smithsonian Web and New Media Strategy v 1.0: Hot off the press.
• Who do you trust? A post by Marvin Heiferman, Smithsonian Photography Initiative, on the veracity of photojournalism.
• Are You There? by Merry A. Foresta, Smithsonian Photography Initiative, on travel photography.
• Ten Years Later: A round-up of the Chandra X-ray Lab, from the Smithsonian.
• Matthew Lewis talks Harry Potter 7, IMAX, and weird fans, all at the National Media Museum.
• Praise for PANDORA: A post from the State Library of Queensland, Australia, on Australia’s Web Archive. They also have 3 new digital stories available.
• Fellowship Awards Preserves Films: A short report on this project by George Eastman House.
• Job Search: How to Avoid Interview Mishaps: Get armed for your next job interview, from the good folks at the New York Public Library.
• Also, The Craft of the Book: Reading List: A PSA from the NYPL
• Oh yea, and the NYPL is looking for a Senior Applications Developer. Apply now.
• The Australia War Memorial goes on the offense about the terms ‘wounded’ and ‘injured’.

Friday Fun!

Need more baby animals fix? Look no farther than Flickr and the National Zoo’s photostream.

Go Visit!

01 August – My Fair Lady at the Dryden Theatre, George Eastman House, a Lerner and Loewe classic.

Now through 18 October – In Focus: Making a Scene at the Getty Museum. Theatricality and photography: “the images in this exhibition are inspired by art history, literature, religion, and mainstream media.”

13 August – The New York Public Library partners with the NYC chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association to host screenings of HBO’s series on Alzheimer’s Disease.

• George Eastman House posts a terrific podcast on the The Lunar Orbiter Camera, manufactured by Eastman Kodak.
• Also from GEH, The Moon Imagined, about James Hall Nasmyth and the moon.
• The Getty Museum tweeted a great old moon photo in their collection to celebrate the 40th anniversary of men walking on the moon.
• Students can help archive the Internet – the Library of Congress teams up with the Internet Archive (hey! George works there, yay!) and the California Digital Library to launch the K-12 Web Archiving Program.
• The Field Museum launches a new Facebook application! Get yer pirate on, matey…
• Preserving Gallipoli aerial photographs, an article from the Australian War Memorial about one of their fascinating and unusual collections.
• Check out the Picks from the feminist bloggers on the Brooklyn Museum’s site: Feminist art, news, and events from the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art.
• Have you read the New York Public Library’s Blogging@NYPL? A great resource for book reviews and info on their services.
• Read Destination: Niagara Falls, a great article by Christin Boggs of the Smithsonian Photography Initiative.
• Iain Logie Baird, the curator of television at the National Media Museum, talks with the BBC about an old TV set.
• View podcasts of the NMeM’s film series.
• The Oregon State University Archives has a new take on preserving history (psst, it involves Flickr!)
• The Powerhouse Museum asks for your help with direct input into the Australian Government 2.0 Issues Paper.
• Do also check out some fun notes about their Odditorium exhibit.
• Learn about debris from an exploded star in the Smithsonian Institution’s Chandra X-ray Lab blog.
• View the Design in D.C. webcasts on Friday, July 24, 10 a.m.–11 a.m., from the Smithsonian’s National Design Museum.

Want to tag Flickr Commons photos on your iPhone? Check out the Extraordinaries! Crowdsourcing just got a whole lot easier.

Heard around the Commons:

• Hot diggity! The Swedish National Heritage Board reports it’s reached 200,000 views on its Flickr Commons collection!
• Remembering Michael Jackson, from the New York Public Library’s blog.
• The Library of Congress is now on Facebook and iTunes U!
• There is still time to sign up for the FLICC Preservation Institute, a joint venture between Lyrasis, the Library of Congress, the Federal Library and Information Center Committee (FLICC), and the Federal Library and Information Network (FEDLINK).
• Three new indigenous digital stories are now on Queensland Stories at the State Library of Queensland, Australia’s website.
• Check out the Powerhouse Museum’s Odditoreum, “an incredibly low-tech ‘exhibition’ with no technology-based interactive experiences and minimal web presence.”
• See the Modern Times immersive, a nifty Powerhouse article about an exhibition which is traveling to the State Library of Queensland.
• Husbands and Wives: Stories from the Film Archive of the George Eastman House.
• A quick rundown of the Brooklyn Museum’s ArtSee, a web app formatted for the iPod Touch 3″ screen.
• The Scout Report brings you the Best of 2008-2009 online resources, and the Smithsonian’s History Explorer tops the chart!
• The Camera Loved Einstein, another in a series of posts about the Smithsonian’s Flickr collection, by Catherine Shteynberg, Smithsonian Photography Initiative.
• A Galaxy Collision in Action, an informative post from the Smithsonian’s Chandra X-Ray blog about Stephan’s Quintet.
• Happy birthday to the Smithsonian National Zoo’s giant happy panda, Tai Shan! See photos of Tai Shan and his giant birthday cake.

Friday Fun:

Watch an intriguing video about digital information by Everywhere Is Here.
Hat tip to the good folks at the D.C. Public Library for this find.

Go Visit!

11 July - Mas Exitos, the legendary twice-a-month event held at the Verdugo Bar in Highland Park, comes to the Getty Museum. The Getty has been closed due to wildfires this week, so be sure to call ahead for information about this event.

23 July - Watkins and the Rapiers play at the George Eastman House, part of the Garden Vibes summer concert series.

Fill the Gap: Case 55B (Jul 09) by the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Help the Smithsonian American Art Museum find an object for this space by searching their online collections.

• RIP Michael Jackson. Some notes about his passing from the Brooklyn Museum and the Smithsonian.
• Gone, But Not Forgotten: Marvin Heiferman, Smithsonian Photography Initiative, laments the passing of Kodachrome.
• m-Libraries 2009 coverage by the New York and D.C. Public Libraries.
• PandaCam at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo!
• Wayne Clough, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution discusses how the Smithsonian is using new technology tools in support of the Institution’s 163-year-old mission: the “increase and diffusion of knowledge,” in this CSPAN video.
• Did you know that the Smithsonian streams live events on ustream?
• Vote for the best dressed in red, white, and blue in the Smithsonian National Museum of American History 4th of July contest!
• Intern opportunities are available at that museum, too. Check out this write-up of what it’s like to intern for them.
• Guinea pigs wanted for the D.C. Public Library’s Google Voice platform! Check out the DCPL’s other projects, too, including an iPhone app.
• You can learn a language at the D.C. Public Library, too.
• 8 finding aids for the Oregon State University Archives collections were completed or updated in June 2009.
• Judith H. Dobrzynski had lunch with Arnold Lehman, director of the Brooklyn Museum; they discussed the problem of permanent collections.
• Hey U, Tune In: The Library of Congress is now on iTunes!
• Learn about the people that make the stacks come alive in this Library of Congress post.
• Is a Bad Economy Ever ‘Good’? Read this LOC post about public service announcements, the Ad Council, and the donation of ad inventory by papers struggling to stay afloat in the new economy.
• Learn more about the global recession and the arts in this round-up from The Source, National Library of New Zealand.
• Find, Out. NLNZ’s discovery service is now in beta!
• See Old McDonald … and Dick and Jane, a favorite of Jay Vissers, New York Public Library.
• The delphiniums are in bloom at the George Eastman House! Check out their trials with email in Picturing Rochester: Behind the Scenes.
• Keep up to date on all the happenings of the Swedish National Heritage Board during Almedal Week. Lots of information and presentation info, and links to translate it all into English.
• Museums as soup kitchens for the soul, from the Powerhouse Museum.
• These podcasts from the State Archives and Library of Florida will brighten any day. I’ve been listening as I compile this. :)
• Download the National Media Museum’s film schedule.
• First World War diary record series passes 400,000 images at the Australian War Memorial.
• The History of the John Oxley Library – Part Five, by the State Library of Queensland, Australia.

Friday Fun!

Astoria, Oregon, Oregon State University Archives

Take a trip with the Oregon State University Archives! People and Places: Early “Oregon” – a great overview of OSU Archive’s latest release to the Commons.

Go Visit!

Ending July 5 - Caillebotte: The works of impressionist painter, Gustave Caillebotte, exclusively at the Brooklyn Museum. Brooklyn is the final stop on this tour and the only American venue for this exhibition.

Ending July 5 - Masterpieces of Ancient Jewelry: Exquisite Objects from the Cradle of Civilization at Chicago’s Field Museum.

Now through July 11 - Foundry to Finish: Making of a Bronze Sculpture at the Getty; This exhibition and accompanying photographs and videos demonstrate the process of bronze casting as Adriean de Vries practiced it for Juggling Man.

July 20-24 - Summer School – How Do You Make Powerful Art? at the National Galleries of Scotland. Investigate art from Raphael to Damien Hirst, looking at why artists make art.