Read about My Friend Flickr: A Match Made in Photo Heaven on the Library of Congress Blog. It explains that LOC is releasing close to 3000 archived photos from its collection to a new Flickr page. The images are such that there are no known copyright restrictions. This is just a drop in the bucket when you consider that they have close to 14 million photographs and other visual materials in their collection, but this is pretty exciting none the less. They are also allowing users to add notes and comments to the images. By putting these images out in this manner they are also using the knowledge of Flickr viewers to add information about images. For example already people have recognized places and events in the photographs and have added information regarding these. This type of crowd-sourcing allows the Library of Congress to greatly enhance the knowledge base associated with their archive, while at the same time allowing the public access to their materials.
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