Back in January, the Library of Congress began an outreach experiment by posting a relatively small selection of pictures from their collection to flickr. Since then they’ve been adding about fifty images a week.
This month, two museums join the library in posting their pictures to The Commons section of the photo sharing site.
The Brooklyn Museum in New York contributed more than 500 images from their collection and the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, Australia added almost that many.
As with the images provided by the Library, visitors to the museums pages are encouraged to leave comments and add tags they believe will help users better find them.
All pictures also can be easily downloaded and carry “no known copyright restrictions” making them excellent materials for both teachers and students to use for projects and presentations.
Currently the collection at the top of the BM pages includes some interesting pictures from expeditions to Egypt in the early part of the 20th century.
Hopefully, we’ll be seeing more institutions joining the Commons very soon.
This is my favorite link of all time. No hyperbole.
As a prospective history teacher, I’ve been dreaming of a database like this for ages.
Hyperbole? Who me?
Where? :-)
Tim,
I had missed this news. Thanks for sharing! Very cool!