NASA
Astronaut James Irwin gives salute beside U.S. flag during lunar surface extravehicular activity (EVA), August 1, 1971
George Eastman House: 1992:0007:0002.0001

• 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.

All of these images are taken from a Flickr Commons group discussion topic on “Landscapes across the Commons”. Those of us who posted in that topic found that while we knew there was a lot of historical landscape photography in the Commons, it was often not tagged to make it easily searchable. If you find more, please add tags, in English and other languages you may speak, to help later users find it as well.

Hakone Lake, Japan, late 19th century, chosen by Nina.

New York Public Library

Swallow Cliff Woods area, Illinois, 1917, chosen by Nina.

Field Museum Library

Sintra, Portugal, 20th c., chosen by Penny.

Biblioteca de Arte-Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian

Loch Earn, Scotland, about 1864, chosen by Penny.

National Galleries of Scotland

Percé Rock, Quebec, 1898?, chosen by Criz.

Musée McCord Museum

Willoughby Falls, Australia, turn of the century, chosen by Criz.

Powerhouse Museum

Ryfossen, Norway, 1890?, chosen by Criz.

Swedish National Heritage Board

Diamond Lake, Oregon, 1945, chosen by Nina.

Oregon State University Archives

Castelet falls, France, circa 1900, chosen by me.

Bibliothèque de Toulouse

Our weekly look around the Commons’ institutions to see what’s happening both digitally and brick-&-mortar.

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.

Friday Fun!

The Brooklyn Museum engaged in live tweeting on 23 June when they took four mummies from their collection to be CT scanned at the North Shore University Hospital in Long Island. They used hashtag #mummyCT: their Tweets and with everyone!
See more photos and videos here.

Heard around the Commons:

• The Brooklyn Museum’s 1stfans Twitter Art Feed Artist for July 2009: Ranjit Bhatnagar’s “Exquisite Sonnet.” 1stfans members, get yer tweet on for this one!
• The 2nd International m-Libraries Conference in Vancouver is all a-twitter with updates: #mlib09.
• Make it Digital – DigitalNZ’s one-stop shop for questions about creating digital content in New Zealand! This site features questions, ideas, and guides; do drop by and check it out.
• Top museums on Twitter – Jim Richardson reports on how museums are using the popular micro-blogging website Twitter. The Brooklyn Museum is listed as #2.
• Be sure to make a visit to The Source: news about digital libraries and library innovations from around the web, brought to you every Friday by the National Library of New Zealand. Copyfights!
• What’s in the workshop #2 – Investigate the Powerhouse Museum’s fetish for strange things on wheels.
• The New York Public Library is gearing up for its new website launch. Yay! The NYPL also has some new things in the works and is looking for lab rats.
• Name that film! The George Eastman House shares sleuthing tips.
• NARA and MoMA – See what’s happening with the students of The L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation, from the George Eastman House.
• Aquamarine crystals are the Gemstone of the Month at the Field Museum’s Grainger Hall of Gems.
• The National Librarian, Andrew Green, of the National Library of Wales, will be among those honored by the Gorsedd of Bards at this year’s National Eisteddfod.
• Diwrnod agoriadol y Smithsonian – ahhhhh, no idea what this says, but I liked seeing the Smithsonian being discussed in Welsh. ;-)
• Watch the 2009 Smithsonian Folklife Festival webcasts this weekend! Welsh music, mariachis, storytelling and poetry.
• Suited for Space: Last Words from the Curator – An engaging blog post reporting on the tribulations of a traveling space exhibit by the Smithsonian Institution.
• SI also reports on how Google Street View was used to solve a crime.
• A Short History of Photography from Cigar Box to Cell Phone, by Merry A. Foresta of the Smithsonian Photography Initiative
• The Swedish National Heritage Board live blogs from its activities during Almedal week. The Board will organize a seminar on e-government and new social media July 2.
• Portraits — and Pot-Shots — in Song: A witty exhibit from the Library of Congress chronicling US Presidential campaign songs.
• Newstead – The State Library of Queensland, Australia, tells you all about this Brisbane suburb.
• Also, Picture Queensland images now available through One Search.
• The Oregon State University Archives reports that William Jasper Kerr, a biography, has been scanned and is now available on ScholarsArchive.
• Win one of the biggest Harry Potter posters in the world in the National Media Museum’s competition.

Go Visit!

12th June to 31st August: The Art Competition for Schools 2009 exhibition at the National Galleries of Scotland. See the 53 winning works of budding young talents.

24 June through 22 August: With Malice Toward None: Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Exhibit, a traveling exhibit from the Library of Congress at the California Museum in Sacramento, CA.

Throughout July: The July Film Series is announced at the Library of Congress’s Packard Campus Theater, including Key Largo, An American in Paris, and Chinatown.

2 July: Exclusive preview of Soul Power, a film by Jeffrey Levy-Hinte documenting a music festival that unites black American stars with African musicians in Kinshasa, at the National Media Museum.

SHOUT IT OUT! Help keep the New York Public Library open.

Read more about the NYPL’s plight at the Daily News.

Heard around the Commons:

• Vet du hvor bildet er tatt? Last week, the Swedish National Heritage Board asked for help identifying a photo in the Commons. Within 24 hours, the location was determined … and they got a write up on the news!
• Pirates land in Chicago, a photo essay in the Chicago Sun-Times of the Field Museum’s “Real Pirates”.
• The Field’s dead geese help solve mystery of plane in Hudson, an article by the Chicago Tribune.
• Enter the Don McCullin competition at the National Media Museum: Win a signed hardback copy of the book Don McCullin by commenting on one of the photos Don curated for the museum’s Flickr stream.
• Check out the photos of the opening night of 1984, with John Hurt, at the National Media Museum.
• Celebrate the 1,000th Tyrrell image in the Powerhouse Museum’s Flickr stream!
• Valour is explained by the Australian War Memorial.
• Installing the Summer Shows, insight into the behind-the-scenes work at the George Eastman House.
• I Do Solemnly Swear … Got photos of the 2009 U.S. Presidential Inauguration? Share them with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
• Picnic pest is focus of a Smithsonian exhibition — A write-up from the Philadelphia Enquirer on an intriguing photography exhibit.
• Check out some new National Air and Space Museum Photos (Smithsonian).
• Meanwhile, back on earth … A Slideshow, curated Flickr photos, by the Smithsonian Photography Initiative’s Marvin Heiferman.
• Islamic Art at the Brooklyn Museum, from Sunday Arts.
• Check out this interview by the Examiner of Dr. Patrick Amsellem, the Associate Curator of Photography at the Brooklyn Museum.
• The Sounds of American Life and Legend are tapped for the Seventh Annual National Recording Registry, from the Library of Congress.

Friday Fun!

The History of Household Technology, from the Library of Congress

Go Visit!

Now through 30 June — 1969: The Year of Gay Liberation at the New York Public Library. The 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in Greenwich Village, New York, is this month. There’s also a collection of GLBT books on display at the D.C. Public Library. We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it!

12-14 June – Fantastic Films Weekend at the National Media Museum. Oohhhhhhhhh, scary movies!

13 June –Garden Fest 2009: The Scenic Route, the annual all day family-friendly event presented by the Horticulture Services Division (HSD) at the Smithsonian Institution.

13 June — Alice Waters book signing at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.

15 June – Kick-Off Event: Juneteenth DC 2009 at the D.C. Public Library. Featuring performances, remarks and a reception in celebration of the abolition of slavery in the U.S. More info on Juneteenth here.

16 June – What Is a Conversation Piece? at the National Galleries of Scotland. Desmond Shawe-Taylor, Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures, explores this fascinating type of art, which is such an important tradition within European painting.

Remember summer camp and craft projects?  It’s that time of year again. Most Indicommons readers don’t get to spend a week in the woods anymore, twisting yarn around sticks, making sunprints with ferns, or gluing tissue paper to stones. So consider this post a virtual trip to the craft cabin. In this tutorial, we’ll make a set of four quick-and-easy cards with Commons images and a few ordinary office supplies. Never get caught without a perfect card again!

For my examples (above), I used the Field Museum Library’s wonderful World’s Columbian Exposition set, which includes prints, photographs, and ephemera related to the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, the “White City” where the first Ferris Wheel appeared, among other wonders. (Across the Commons, the Brooklyn Museum and the Smithsonian Institution have also posted images from the World’s Columbian Exposition.) But the idea can work for any images you like, so do explore the possibilities.

1. First, lay out two sheets of images: one for your backgrounds, and one for your foregrounds. For the background sheet, I copied and pasted the images of tickets from the Commons, in a collage pattern. Change the sizes as you see fit, and adjust the colors and contrast so that they’re mostly black-and-white (save your printer ink). For the foreground sheet, I copied and pasted an image of the Ferris wheel four times.  Choose a strong image that won’t be a huge hassle to cut out, and (again) you can adjust the contrast and colors for your purposes.

2. Print out each sheet onto white cardstock. Your pages should look like these:

3. Cut each sheet into quarters. If you stop here, you have eight postcards:

4. Cut the background rectangles slightly smaller (your printer probably left white edges — cut those off).  Now add a bit of color with ink pads, markers, pencils … whatever’s handy. Darker in the corners and edges, lighter toward the center, will usually give a good effect. Or you can leave the backgrounds alone and color the central image instead.

5. Cut out the central images from the foreground rectangles.

6. Use a gluestick or double-stick tape to mount the backgrounds to folded cardstock (I used some dark green and red scraps here), then add the central image:

That’s it! You’ve made four cool cards without a trip to the art supply store, thanks to Flickr Commons.

Who doesn’t love a great adventure story? One replete with strange new lands, hard journeys across the high seas, and amazing new sights to behold . . .

Journey through the Commons and you might find … … a voyage to Antarctica at the turn of the last century.

State Library of New South Wales

Explorers headed toward the North Pole …

Library of Congress

… and the Inuit they find there.

National Maritime Museum

Adventure beckoned in the then-New Frontier, as when Yosemite was encountered by Western travelers …

New York Public Library

… or the unknowns of South America.

Field Museum

And then there is tomorrowland …

State Archives of Florida

… and outer space!

Smithsonian Institution

Show us the Commons explorations you’ve found in our Flickr group.

Animals are a common theme in the Flickr Commons, and we’ve noticed some very magnetic images of them across the institutions. Always good for a laugh … Here are some of our favorites.

The absurdly camel version of Mr. Ed …

Field Museum

A flock of sheep frolicking …

Oregon State University Archives

A performing sitting bear …

Nationaal Archief

Man’s best friend …

Library of Congress

An interloper elephant …

State Library of New South Wales

… and thieving pelicans. (Their beaks can hold more than their bellies can!)

State Archives of Florida

What animals are you attracted to in the Commons?

Get yer hankies out: the State Archives of Florida uploads the location scouting photos for MGM’s 1946 film The Yearling. The photographs taken for pre-production of The Yearling document two significant aspects of Florida culture: the state’s role in American film and the folklife of Florida “Crackers.”

“The Yearling”: Pre-production and Location Photographs of MGM’s “The Yearling,” 1939-1941

The Field Museum goes crazy and provides 170 more images of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition held in Chicago. The White City comes to life with these gorgeous, crisp, clean images of the fair.

1893 World’s Columbian Exposition

The Field Museum also brings the first images of South America into the Flickr Commons with a great set of photos from geology expeditions in Argentina during the 1920s.

Argentina Geology Expeditions

Happy International Year of Astronomy from the Smithsonian Institutions’ Chandra X-ray Observatory.

Chandra X-ray Observatory

The State Library of Queensland, Australia, is now posting its Photo of the Week at the Flickr Commons. This week’s image is of the 1893 flood in Brisbane.

Picture of the Week

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