Here is a great example of how Web 2.0 applications, in this case Flickr, encourage public interaction with public collections. Do you know about Flickr Commons? The Commons was set up as 'your opportunity to contribute to describing the world's public photo collections'. Participating organisations include various international institutions such as Library of Congress and New York Public Library but also Powerhouse, State Library of NSW, State Library of Qld and the Australian War Memorial. Institutions upload collections with no known copyright restrictions and visitors help describe images either by commenting or 'tagging' (more about tagging and folksonomies in another post).
The Powerhouse photostream is as usual very well set up. This interesting photo is from the Phillips Glass Negative Collection. Check out the comment stream below the photo. It starts and ends with the usual boring 'great photo' type comments but in the middle is this amazing exchange between two people who go on a web quest to try and work out if the unidentified men are actually painters of the Heidelberg School! Even if the result is inconclusive the way in which they go off to other sites and come back to report their findings shows how even an unidentified image can fire the imagination.
There are already a number of performing arts-related images on the site including several from the State Library of NSW. Imagine what we could do with our photographic collection?
Caz
Very interetsing Caz - Flickr Commons provides the perfect opportunity for us to publish some of our unidentified (but never-the-less interesting) Laurie Richards collection negatives.
ReplyDeleteWhile we await Web 2.0 on the Arts Centre's site... we can still get out there and contribute content to other websites alongside other major Collecting Institutions. No doubt there would be other intangible benefits from engaging with such a well known and easy to use site as Flickr.
Yes this is indeed a great opportunity for us. It would be very exciting (probably amusing at times) to read engaging discussions & have our photos the subject of a bit of detective work. Can’t wait Caz!
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