NYPL HAS JOINED FLICKR

We’d like to welcome the New York Public Library to The Commons on Flickr today, joining with a curious selection from its collection; opening up 16 “caskets” for us to see! 

Apart from all the beautiful photos that the Library is sharing in the Commons today, we’re also trying an experiment: NYPL librarians have already spent a ton of time describing many of these photos, particularly with subject headings that describe the contents of the images. Rather than discarding this information, we’ve added a selection of these tags as a nucleus for everyone else to build from; the hope is that this will provoke rather than stifle activity on the Commons, with librarians and non-librarians collaborating on the description of this material. Time will tell, though, so check back in a few months for some analysis.

This release of around 1,200 photographs include a collection taken of Ellis Island in the early 1900s, by Lewis Hine and others…