LoC + Flickr – Commons steps in the right direction

Posted on by jessamyn

I got into a funny conversation with a friend of mine at the MIT Puzzle hunt this weekend (my team came in third out of 37!) about finding images of things. There’s a lot of data collection in puzzling and a lot of times when you have to do is, say, look at a photo and figure out what it is or where it’s from. This is great of someone recognizes it, not so great if someone doesn’t. Every puzzler has their own personal sites they use for this. I tend to use Google images because it’s fast and I can move through it quickly. Others use Wikipedia. My friend was saying he uses the Commons site. At first I thought he meant the Creative Commons search which I don’t fiund super-useful and told him so. He actually meant the Wikimedia Commons which is a great place to find freely licensed images.

Now Flickr has launched their Commons site which does a few things.

  1. Makes LoC images available for anyone to see
  2. Allows people to tag and interact with these photos
  3. Creates a new way of licensing or explaining their IP idea called “no known copyright protections” which they go on to explain

These beautiful, historic pictures from the Library represent materials for which the Library is not the intellectual property owner. Flickr is working with the Library of Congress to provide an appropriate statement for these materials. It’s called “no known copyright restrictions.”

Hopefully, this pilot can be used as a model that other cultural institutions would pick up, to share and redistribute the myriad collections held by cultural heritage institutions all over the world.

So, they’re taking a risk, they’re sharing their data, they’re presuming good faith, and they’re going to try this out. Close readers may also note the small text on this page “Any Flickr member is able to add tags or comment on these collections. If you’re a dork about it, shame on you. This is for the good of humanity, dude!!” Which, loosely translated means they’re starting out trusting people and trying to maintain a light tone about it.

So, the original photos are still held by the Library of Congress and Flickr has no “ownership” of them as a result of this partnership. They’re available worldwide [well except Dubai and other places that block Flickr entirely] and they’re in a system that allows for user-generated content additions to the content. I’m pleased that the LoC, or someone at the LoC decided to step up and really demonstrate how trust and openness can help further the mission of culutral institutions. Now if I could only get LoC to friend me….

how to be so-called famous

Posted on by jessamyn

Karen Schneider has a great post that is just now crossing my radar because I’ve been ignoring my RSS feed for a while and spending more time cooking. It’s called How To Be Famous and there are two things I like about it a great deal.

First, when I scanned it the first time I was like “Oh this was great but she forgot…” and then on a second read I realized she didn’t forget a thing, at least as I see things. Second, she wrote this list so I don’t have to. People in libraryland ask me what I do or did to travel and speak like I do — less than most but more than many others — and I let them in on my little pair of secrets which is 1) you have to want to do it to be able to do it, which already rules out a ton of people with other obligations or who just hate travel, public speaking or, frankly, other people. 2) I can manage to do what I do because I live a very small and simple life in rural Vermont with no pets or children and only a few peaked looking houseplants. The town rolls up the sidewalks at eight and most evenings I noodle away working. I am lucky to have a job, or a few jobs, that are flexible enough to allow me to travel and I’m equally fortunate to actually enjoy schlepping around and meeting other people.

The most important things I would point to on Karen’s list are these. The importance of taking care of yourself or as she says “pace yourself.” Not only are you no good to anyone if you haven’t gotten enough sleep or down-time, but being continually on-the-road exhausted is a lifestyle problem at some level. If you’re a brain surgeon, this may not be true. If you’re a librarian, it definitely is. Also, I believe strongly in helping up-and-comers and mentoring people newer to the profession or even people just considering the profession. People were there to answer my million questions when I was an early WLA and ALA member, I figure I can do the same for early bloggers and facebookers and whoever. Time and effort you invest in other people, for the most part, is time and effort well-invested.

Computers in Libraries welcomes me

Posted on by jessamyn

Jessamyn Joins Us

If you’re at ALA you may have already seen this issue of Computers in Libraries. If not, you may be interested to know that I’m going to be co-editing (well alternating writing) the Tech Tips Column with Rachel Singer Gordon.

It’s hard for wordy old me to give advice in 1300 words but I do my best and even include a screenshot or two. I have the right to post my columns ninety days after they’re published in print so they’ll show up here eventually as well. The January issue has my advice on how to examine your web logs to figure out how, when and where users are accessing your website. The column I put to bed just today (I guess technically it’s a department, Dan Chudnov, now he has a column) due out in March is about Open Source software. I’m a little sad to see my favorite editor, Kathy Dempsey, move on to bigger and better things and I’m a little nervous about getting edited again, but so far it’s been great and just another way to get the word out.