Smithsonian adds photos to Flickr Commons
The Smithsonian Institution has begun adding historical photos to The Commons, Flickr's project to host publicly held images.
Felix Nadar is one subject among hundreds from the Smithsonian Institution now visible at Flickr.
(Credit: Smithsonian)The Smithsonian added 800 photographs from its collection of 13 million images, and 1,200 more will be added in coming months, Yahoo said in a Thursday announcement.
"Our goals in participating in The Commons on Flickr are to expose new, larger, broader and younger audiences to our photographic collections and help them discover more of the Smithsonian educational resources," said Richard Kurin, the acting undersecretary for history, art, and culture, in a statement..
Flickr launched The Commons with the Library of Congress in January. It's also drawn interest from the Powerhouse Museum, which joined The Commons in April and said it's happy with the results it's seen.
Putting the photos on Flickr lets ordinary people add tags and other annotations. That can be good and bad: people can label historic buildings, but also clutter shots with inane notes such as the "daddy?" note on a photo of Albert Einstein and others.
Flickr is a prominent part of Yahoo, but changes are afoot at the site. Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake, the husband-and-wife co-founders of Flickr, are leaving Yahoo.
Stephen Shankland writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and since then also has covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux and open-source software, and science. E-mail Stephen, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/stshank. 
