This presentation was given by Georges Oates (Flickr) at the seminar Nationaal Archief joins Flickr the Commons on 4 November 2008 in Rotterdam. This project is part of the Dutch digitization project Images for the Future, www.imagesforthefuture.org.

1. Hello.
e Commons on Flickr: A Primer
Rotterdam, Netherlands
November 4, 2008

3. Today
★ Quick Flickr overview
★ Introduction to e Commons on Flickr
★ e Nationaal Archief, 2 weeks in...
★ Questions?

4. “A great place to be a photo.”

5. Born on February 10, 2004

8. e “Onion”
★ You Your photos, “sets”, tags etc
★ Contacts People you know, photographers you like
★ Groups ings you’re interested in, social groups
★ Explore Everything else, maps, cameras, search

9. Today…

10. ★ 3 billion photos (as of yesterday!)
★ 3 million uploads per day
★ 82 million geotagged photos
★ 25 million unique tags
#3,000,000,000

11. ★ 47 million unique visitors a month
★ 103 million visits a month
★ 473 million minutes spent a month
★ 30 million registered members

12. It’s made of people.

14. New audiences

15. e Commons on Flickr

17. Over 1 million digital records,
looking for a “Web 2.0” partner

18. Why choose Flickr?
★ Designed specifically to browse and search
photographs
★ An active, engaged community with a deep
connection to photography
★ An infrastructure big enough to support
hosting 2.8 billion photos
★ Available in 8 languages

19. But…

20. So…

21. No Known Copyright
Restrictions

22. Wait a minute…

23. Launched
January 16, 2008

25. Why?

26. Why?
1) To increase access to public photography archives

30. 30

31. View by Tag, or Search
Browse
31

32. 32

33. 33

34. 34

35. 35

37. Why?
1) To increase access to public photography archives

38. Why?
1) To increase access to public photography archives
2) To gather information about them

39. Why?
1) To increase access to public photography archives
2) To gather information about them
3) To share feedback with the institution & the web

40. So far…

42. Launched October 21, 2008!

44. “rosie the riveter”

45. 9,000,000 views

47. swanq says:
“A little more research and I think I know what's actually going
on. e schoolboys are beating the bounds of the parish. See
fullhomelydivinity.org/articles/rogation%20an d%20ascensio...
which has pictures and a description of the tradition.”

49. crpascasio says:
“is is the inside of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond vault
located on 9th and Franklin Street.”

51. Heidi Donat says:
“At the left in the far distance is the collapsed mudbrick Black
Pyramid of Amenemhat III. In the center is the Bent Pyramid of
Sneferu, father of Khufu. and at the right is the Red Pyramid,
also built by Sneferu.”

53. Multilingual description

55. 56 “faves”

58. 100,000 views in a day

60. en & Now: Flickr/Google mashup by Paul Hagon

62. http://a.viary.com/artists/michael/images/sheperd_power

65. Noise

81. Signal

82. Feedback

83. Questions
• What does it mean for institutions to engage
so directly in such an open communication
channel?
• What sort of information has e Commons
generated so far?
• What’s working? What’s not?

99. “Metadata creation
has been democratized.”
- Clay Shirky

100. Any good?

102. Mayanaut says:
“Unfortunately, many of the tags on this photo are incorrect. it is
neither a Zeppelin, nor a dirigible. Barrage balloons were not
manufactured by the Zeppelin company, nor did they utilize
helium as their lifting gas.”

103. Mayanaut says:
“I applaud the Library of Congress for allowing individuals to add
tags, but in this case, such incorrect tags are merely contributing
to historical inaccuracies.”

104. Azchael says:
“@mayanaut: But you wrote a corrective statement, which means
that a natural control mechanism is taking place and those
interested find the right information.”

105. ★ Transcription
★ Photo format/technology
★ Timeframes
★ Creator name
★ Subjects: based on the image
★ ings in the image that weren't in the record - quot;yellowquot;, quot;applequot; etc
★ Transcription of signs
★ Commentary - quot;dapper”
★ Humour - quot;UFO”
★ Checking a source, cross-referenced
★ Expanding context - quot;LA Bombing”
★ Emotional responses - quot;Wow”
★ Machine tags
★ Geo
★ Variants
★ Non-english

107. Historical authenticity in the Flickr context is not
required
People say all kinds of things about the pictures
You can decide what comes back in to the catalogue,
but not what's quot;rightquot;
One photo can go quot;multi-purposequot;, to serve
different people
- Helena Zinkham
Acting Chief of the Library of C Prints & Photographs Catalog

109. Try a search for “flickr”

110. 110

111. Tags imported
from Flickr
111

112. e Nationaal Archief

113. Day 1: 122,514 views

114. Day 1: 122,514 views
Today: 430,000 views

122. Signal

126. http://flickr.com/photos/blumpy/325853852/

127. ank You.
George Oates
glo@yahoo-inc.com

128. h*p://flickr.com/photos/baboon/405064021
h*p://flickr.com/photos/straup/201416382/
h*p://flickr.com/photos/carthorse/340434797
h*p://flickr.com/photos/motorboat4107/320693821/
h*p://flickr.com/photos/24223801@N08/3000000000/
h*p://flickr.com/photos/lfcastro/471892144/
h*p://flickr.com//library_of_congress/2179930812/
h*p://flickr.com/photos/george_eastman_house/2678364640/
Photo Credits h*p://flickr.com/photos/library_of_virginia/2899343224/
h*p://flickr.com/photos/brooklyn_museum/2674879228/
h*p://flickr.com/photos/statelibraryofnsw/2868980227/
h*p://flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2163497682/
h*p://flickr.com/photos/naJonalmariJmemuseum/2843695264/
h*p://flickr.com/photos/naJonalmariJmemuseum/2842843325/
h*p://flickr.com/photos/smithsonian/2898310107/
h*p://flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2178246585/
h*p://flickr.com/photos/quatrosinko/367643300/
h*p://flickr.com/photos/naJonaalarchief/2949035078/
h*p://flickr.com/photos/statelibraryofnsw/2968464894/
h*p://flickr.com/photos/mikewebkist/2167059124/
h*p://flickr.com/photos/aureusbay/297387489/