The Library of Congress has added to its Commons collections 22 photographs by the great landscape photographer of the American West Timothy O’Sullivan — and they’d like to know how you would like to see them focus future uploads along this line.
One of the new uploads from the Swedish National Heritage Board to the Curman collection is already part of a wonderful gallery: The Way Things Were, from CameliaTWU.
The Smithsonian Institution has uploaded 58 prints — the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s entire collection — by Washington DC painter Gene Davis (1920-85)
New this fall at the State Library and Archives of Florida: From Florida from orbit and hurricane video from 1928 and an interview about the assassination of President Kennedy to many photos of airplanes .
From the Oregon State University Archives, my favorite set name: People doing stuff in the Herman Bohlman Collection — okay, they’re really photos *from* the collection, of people doing stuff. But it’s a great title. Also from Oregon: photographs of Oregon dams and of salmon fishing.
The Swedish National Heritage Board brings us new views of old churches, additions to its set of ancient monuments, winter scenes, portraits, and more in the Carl Curman collection.
From the LlGC ~ NLW, in Wales, we now have early sepia photographs of many kinds from Swansea and a set of photographs shown in their original cases and frames.
The Galt Museum & Archives has added to the Commons more Alberta studio portraits and a set of photographs of the Canadian Women’s Army Corps (in which my mother-in-law served) from the Second World War.
The LSE Library follows on its Commons debut with many more photographs of faculty, staff, students, and visitors a the London School of Economics, including Tony Blair, Karl Popper, and Sidney and Beatrice Webb.
The Flickr Commons project lets us see the 19th-century beginnings of photography represented in a very 21st-century space. And among those early treasures, we have reminders that women were there at the very beginning, some of the first to embrace photography as an art and as a tool. Consider these four founding mothers:
Anna Atkins (1799-1871) is represented in the Commons by her Photographs of British Algae, found as a set in the New York Public Library’s Flickr stream. Atkins studied science as her father’s assistant and made illustrations of shells for his 1823 translation of Lamarck’s book on the subject. She collected botanical samples, and through both her father and her husband came to know William Fox Talbot, inventor of the negative/positive process. By about 1841 she had access to a camera, but she’s best known for her 1843-45 cyanotypes (sunprints) of algae specimens. She collaborated with another woman, Anne Dixon (1799-1864), on other albums of botanical cyanotypes.
Mary Dillwyn (1816-1906) was also acquainted with William Fox Talbot through family networks: her older brother John Dillwyn Llewelyn (himself a photographer) married Talbot’s cousin Emma. Mary was using a small camera in the early 1850s, and made a specialty of rather informal portraits for the time. After she married a clergyman in 1857, she gave up photography. Her work is to be found in the LIGC-NLW (National Library of Wales) Flickr stream, including this self-portrait from 1853.
Julia Margaret Cameron(1815-1879), who was raised in India, only started taking pictures at age 48, in 1863, when someone gave her a camera as a gift. Through her sister, she knew Tennyson and other writers and artists, and drew from their work in her subjects and poses. Cameron was also forward-thinking enough to get each of her images registered with the copyright office. She continued to make photographs when she moved back to Ceylon in 1875, but it was hard to get the necessary supplies there. The George Eastman House and the National Media Museum Flickr streams both include examples of Cameron’s work.
Elizabeth Rigby Eastlake (1809-1893) wasn’t herself a photographer. She was an art critic who wrote one of the first and most influential essays about photography as an art form, in 1857, declaring that “[p]hotography is intended to supercede much that art has hitherto done, but only that which it was both a misappropriation and a deterioration of Art to do.” She was married to Sir Charles Eastlake, the first president of the Royal Photographic Society. A Hill and Adamson portrait of Lady Eastlake (an early subject of photography as well as an early supporter) c. 1845 can be found in the Flickr stream of the National Galleries of Scotland.
Your weekly round-up of the latest items from The Commons’ digital archives:
The New York Public Library also dazzles us with color images of the Hudson River Valley; this set coincides with their new exhibition Mapping New York’s Shoreline, 1609-2009.
The State Library of Queensland, Australia, posts a shot from an unknown photographer of Margaret Lawrie; be sure to click through the photo to read her story.
We’ve been remiss in pointing out all the delectable new offerings in The Commons as our focus has been on events the institutions have held or celebrated. So, this week’s look at recent uploads contains a wealth of material waiting to be crowdsourced!
Beautiful Lisbon, Portugal, from the Estúdio Horácio Novais in the Biblioteca de Arte-Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian’ collection.
Won’t you please help tag these phenomenal images in the language of your choice?
The Bibliothèque de Toulouse, also needs your help tagging photos. Try the new photos they’ve added to this dandy set of transportation – on the road in France!
Visit some stunning gardens courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution! These historic glass lantern slides of gardens dated from the 1920s and 1930s, considered a “golden era” for gardens in America’s history.
View 3 African expeditions in this marvelous set from The Field Museum Library. This is a must-see collection which includes some real prizes by the renowned Louis Agassiz Fuertes.
Babe Ruth, Casey Stengel and more are featured in the Library of Congress’s ode to America’s national pastime. Just in time for the pennant races. Those damn yankees, why can’t we beat ‘em? They also uploaded a slew of baseball photographs from the Bain News Service, too.
The Oregon State University Archives gets credit for most utilitarian set name with these cool photos of people doin’ their thing. Photographs by Herman Theodore Bohlman.
You know the Galt Museum & Archives in Canada recently joined The Commons, eh? Check our this set of one of their curator’s favorites. Fun stuff – especially as Halloween draws near.
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!
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.
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!
Library of Congress BagIt: Transferring Content for Digital Preservation
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!
Brooklyn Museum mummy#1 Lady Hor 37.50E being moved, June 2009
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.
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. ;-)
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.
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.
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.
Mr. John Hachmeister and Mrs. Earl Baum admiring a 1,200 lb manta ray caught by Forrest Walker
Bobsleeën, skeleton / Bobsleigh, skeleton
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