Flickr brings tagging to vintage images

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The Library of Congress initiative shares characteristics of projects like SETI@home and Amazon.com's Mechanical Turk, both of which harness the power of the masses to look for solutions.

Those projects, which both task individuals with contributing their time or computer processing power for the larger good, are in some ways the definition of what Wired magazine contributing editor Jeff Howe calls "crowdsourcing."

"The cost of five minutes of a user's time is so marginal, it's almost a why-not," said Howe, author of the forthcoming Crowdsourcing: How the power of the crowd is driving the future of business. "Are they asking for a day of my time? No way, I've got kids. Are they asking for a few minutes? (Then no problem)."

"By going through the exercise, we will reach undiscovered territory and uncharted countries."

--Matt Raymond, public-affairs officer, Library of Congress

One might think the public would be willing to help the Library of Congress because the institution's mission to archive and collect public knowledge and information is benign. But Howe suggested that there would be those who would want to get involved no matter what the agency was.

"If it was the (National Security Agency) asking if I'd want to classify spy photos," Howe said, "even then, you'd get the wannabe spooks" to help.

That's exactly what Flickr and the Library of Congress are counting on as their side-by-side projects get off the ground.

Some observers view the projects as an admirable way of mixing public and private expertise.

"Except for my general nervousness about putting this stuff into a privately held, for-profit organization," blogger David Weinberger wrote Wednesday, "I think this is quite cool. It has the advantage of putting the data where the people already are. As a footnote to the posting says, it takes a photo of a grain elevator as an example 'because it helps illustrate that there are active Flickr user groups for even such diverse subjects as grain elevators.'"

Michelle Springer, project manager of digital initiatives at the Library of Congress, said the agency doesn't mind that its partner is a company that can leverage its participation for potential profit.

"The library's interest is in working with virtually any partner that will help us achieve our mission," Springer said, "and the key thing we keep in mind is that we avoid exclusive arrangements. So if other people wanted to work with us and do similar things, it's not unprecedented for us to do that."

She added that she hopes that the library's experience with the project might spur other government agencies and public institutions to follow its lead.

But for now, the library is just getting used to the fact that the public seems to have responded to its project with very open arms and with an unexpected amount of participation.

"We didn't have a sense of what all we would learn," Raymond said. "And by going through the exercise, we will reach undiscovered territory and uncharted countries."

[keyringwest]

Respect for old memories

It is maybe important in culture to respect old memories and make
certain that tagging doesn't make elders into cartoon people.

[awizemann]

Mothballer.com has been doing this...

www.mothballer.com has been doing this already - although I am sure flickr will get more, just should pay some respect to originators.