Library of Congress opens a Flickr account

This is good news for on-line infophiles and fellow appreciators of quality information. The Library of Congress has opened an account in Flickr, here is their page. If there is anything beyond a pro-account they should get it.

Here are the details on the Library of Congress Blog posted as My Friend Flickr: A Match Made in Photo Heaven. Matt Raymond lists down what is made available via Flickr and why the move was made.

So what are photo collections available?

The project is beginning somewhat modestly, but we hope to learn a lot from it. Out of some 14 million prints, photographs and other visual materials at the Library of Congress, more than 3,000 photos from two of our most popular collections are being made available on our new Flickr page, to include only images for which no copyright restrictions are known to exist. [Source]

For a modest start it seems to be a good start.

Raymond believes that the move goes in line with the mission and goals of the Library of Congress which is:

The Library’s mission is to make its resources available and useful to the Congress and the American people and to sustain and preserve a universal collection of knowledge and creativity for future generations.[Source]

A more specific objective is mentioned by Raymond in the latter part of his post.

The real magic comes when the power of the Flickr community takes over. We want people to tag, comment and make notes on the images, just like any other Flickr photo, which will benefit not only the community but also the collections themselves. For instance, many photos are missing key caption information such as where the photo was taken and who is pictured. If such information is collected via Flickr members, it can potentially enhance the quality of the bibliographic records for the images.[Source]

It seems to be a win win scenario for the Library of Congress and its potential on-line punters. And this means that whatever collection is available can be searched on Yahoo.

By the way here is RSS feed of the Library of Congress’ Flickr site.