9 thoughts on “look who is putting archival photos on Flickr

  1. This is great. I wonder if they should be using the “No known copyright restrictions” like the LoC is doing. Some of the pictures have Public Domain as their rights yet still are listed as a Creative Commons Attribution license. There are also other photos that have nothing listed for rights but are old enough to have fallen out of copyright (like one photo from 1916). It’s under the Attribution license also but that still implies that it is under copyright.

  2. Am I the only one who finds it odd that they decided to use the Accession Number as the Flickr photo name rather than the photo Title?

  3. IANAL, but I’d be careful about assuming whether these photos are in the public domain. If they were never published, or published years after they were created, it’s quite possible they are still in copyright. (I’m talking about the ones that the library has marked with CC licenses, not the ones where the library clearly states they are in the public domain.)

    This always confuses the heck out of me, so I keep Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States close at hand.

  4. Great photos, I’ll add BPL as a contact on our library Flicr account

  5. It’s great to see more and more libraries putting their valuable content in more accessible places, but why can’t I add notes or tags to the images? Weird.

  6. @Christopher Rios: It’s our intention to use the “No known copyright restrictions” marker where appropriate. That license options was added by Flickr as a special case for LoC, and we’re working on making it an option for us as well. For the time being, the items are up with the least restrictive license available to us, though it’s more restrictive than I believe we have any legal standing to impose.

    @Jeanne: Using the accession number as the title was a decision made for practical reasons during bulk uploading. We’re still refining the presentation template for our metadata, and we’ll be changing already-uploaded items to reflect those changes as we go forward.

    @Jenny Levine: We’re planning to open up comments and tagging, but we’re holding off until we refine our presentation a little.

    It’s great to see that these items are being noticed and viewed, and feedback is both welcome and encouraged. I can be reached via email at mklein at bpl dot org.

    Note: I am the Boston Public Library’s Digital Initiatives Technology Librarian, and as such, I’m the guy who wrote the scripts to interface our collections with Flickr. Just the same, I speak only for myself, and nothing I say here should be taken as an official statement from my employer, or an indication of any official BPL policies or procedures.

  7. Thanks for the response, Michael. Glad to hear you’ll be open it up. It’s just such a tease ;)

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