[img src="" caption="" credit="" alt=""]
The Library of Congress has launched its pilot project with Flickr. What began last year as a joint effort to bring the public library's images to the web in a more organized and shareable fashion has finally become a reality. In conjunction with Flickr's new program called The Commons, the Library of Congress has added about 3,000 of its millions of photos to Flickr albums so far (see it here). Man, that's a lot of work left to do, though.
Flickr's Commons program is in fact a sector of the photo-sharing network that's dedicated to helping public institutions get a better online presence in regards to their images. But a very central goal for The Commons is the leveraging of the larger user base to help organize all of these photos, by way of tag words and comments. When it comes to web media, its this meta-data that makes the content richer and more valuable. And that's exactly what the Library of Congress is hoping for: help organizing all those millions of digital images. Is this also a way the government can become more involved with web 2.0? Will I be able to add the Library of Congress as one of my Plaxo friends and stay caught up on its photo stream? I don't see the harm in that!
[img src="" caption="" credit="" alt=""]
I'm also curious about the Library of Congress' hopes for growth beyond Flickr: will this be the base relationship with a web company or the purpose of establishing a more accessible and mainstream persona, or will we be seeing a Photobucket photo stream in the future as well?