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Library of Congress Photos on Flickr:
Frequently Asked Questions

About this Project | Access on Flickr | Things You Can Do | Technical Information

About this Project
Why is the Library placing pictures on Flickr?
Will this replace putting photos up on the Library's Web site?
How were the items selected/why did you pick these pictures?
How long will these photos be available on Flickr?
Does the Library have plans to add more photos to its Flickr account?
Did the Library add any tags to its content on Flickr?

Access to the Photos on Flickr
Do you have to create an account on Flickr to view the Library’s pictures on Flickr?
Is there a fee to create a Flickr account?
How do I find the Library of Congress material on Flickr?
Are these pictures only on Flickr?

Things You Can Do
How can I participate in the pilot?
Will the Library do anything with the tagging info once I add it to the Flickr photos?
I have more information or a question about a particular picture. Whom should I contact?
I noticed an error in the data associated with the picture.  Whom should I contact?
Can I reuse the photos the Library has made available on Flickr? What are the rights and permissions on these? Can I reproduce these pictures?
Are higher resolution copies available?
How do I get copies of these pictures?
Where can I find other photos like these?
Where do I find out more about LC image collections? What else do you have?

Technical Information
How did you load the photos and descriptions onto Flickr? Did you load them one by one?
How did you digitize the photographs?
Why was a Sinar camera used to create these images?
Did you alter these photos in any way? Is the color real? Why do the pictures look so “flat”?
Why is there no EXIF data?
Why is there no IPTC or XMP data?

For information about the Library of Congress Historic Newspapers on Flickr, see: Library of Congress Newspapers on Flickr: Frequently Asked Questions.

About this Project

Q: Why is the Library placing pictures on Flickr?
A: We have several goals:

  • To share photographs from the Library’s collections with people who enjoy images but might not visit the Library’s own Web site.
  • To gain a better understanding of how social tagging and community input could benefit both the Library and users of the collections.  
  • To gain experience participating in Web communities that are interested in the kinds of materials in the Library’s collections.

With the launch of the Library of Congress pilot, Flickr began a new initiative called "The Commons." Cultural heritage institutions that join The Commons are sharing images from their photographic collections that have no known copyright restrictions as a way to increase awareness of these collections with the general public. For more information on The Commons, see: http://www.flickr.com/commons.

A webcast about the project is available: "Opening the Photo Vaults: A Web 2.0 Pilot Project to Enhance Discovery and Gather Input for the Library's Photograph Collections" (presented Jan. 29, 2008).

Q: Will this replace putting photos up on the Library’s Web site?
A: No.  The Library will continue to make digitized collections available on its site.

Q: How were the items selected/why did you pick these pictures?
A: We have picked popular images for which no restrictions on publication or distribution are known and for which high quality files are available.  In our initial offering, because we are also interested in tags and comments on the photos, we picked one set (George Grantham Bain Collection) for which we have minimal identifying information, and another (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information color photographs) that has some subject indexing.

Q: How long will these photos be available on Flickr?
A: The length of the pilot will be determined by the amount of user interest and tagging activity related to the materials. 

Q: Does the Library have plans to add more photos to its Flickr account?
A: The Library has other candidate collections in mind. Leave us a comment on what you’d like to see.

Q: Did the Library add any tags to its content on Flickr?
A: We placed only one tag ("Library of Congress") and two machine tags on each photo when we loaded them. Any other tags you see were added by the community; we are generally not controlling the content of Flickr tags, notes and comments, but we reserve the right to remove added content for any reason.

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Access to Photos on Flickr

Q: Do you have to create an account on Flickr to view the Library’s pictures on Flickr?
A: No account is required to view the photos. If you want to leave tags or comments on the photos, you will have to create a Flickr account.

Q: Is there a fee to create a Flickr account?
A: A basic Flickr account (the type of account required to tag images in the Library_of_Congress sets) is free.

Q: How do I find the Library of Congress material on Flickr?
A: Go to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/Library_of_Congress/.

Q: Are these pictures only on Flickr?
A: These pictures are all available on the Library of Congress Web site as well. To view and read about some of the initial offerings:

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Things You Can Do

Adding Tags, Notes and Comments to the Photos

Q: How can I participate in the pilot?
A: As you walk back in time through the eyes of photographers who worked for the Bain News Service, or explore the color views of American life between 1935 and 1943, please contribute your own tags, comments, and identifying information.
 
Q:  Will the Library do anything with the tagging info once I add it to the Flickr photos?
A:  The Library will decide what to do with data added through Flickr once the pilot is over.  Because resources to update catalog records are limited, the Library cannot promise to incorporate contributed data into its own records.

Q: I have more information or a question about a particular picture. Whom should I contact? 
A: If you have a Flickr account, please send your information through a comment on Flickr (Library of Congress staff will be looking at the comments). If you don’t have an account, you can use our Ask a Librarian service to make a report: Prints & Photographs Ask a Librarian or Performing Arts Ask a Librarian (for information pertaining to the William P. Gottlieb photographs of jazz musicians and personalities). If you are providing additional information, it is helpful if you can also supply information about how you know what you know about the image. Preferably, cite a published source by title, author, and page number (or URL) to simplify verification. (Note: a suggestion form is also available on the Prints & Photographs Division Web site that enables you to fill in this information, if you find that simpler.)

Q: I noticed an error in the data associated with the picture.  Whom should I contact?
A: If you have a Flickr account, you are welcome to give us your information through a comment on Flickr. (Library of Congress staff will be looking at the comments.) If you don’t have an account, you can use our Ask a Librarian service to make a report: Prints & Photographs Ask a Librarian or Performing Arts Ask a Librarian (for information pertaining to the William P. Gottlieb photographs of jazz musicians and personalities). If you are providing additional information, it is helpful if you can also supply information about how you know what you know about the image. Preferably, cite a published source by title, author, and page number (or URL) to simplify verification. (Note: a suggestion form is also available on the Prints & Photographs Division Web site that enables you to fill in this information, if you find that simpler.)

Enjoying and Re-using Photos

Q: Can I reuse the photos the Library has made available on Flickr? What are the rights and permissions on these? Can I reproduce these pictures? 
A: Although the Library of Congress does not grant or deny permission to use photos, the Library knows of no copyright restrictions on the publication, distribution, or re-use of these photos. Privacy rights may apply. Rights statements with further information relating to sets of images provided so far are available:

For Prints & Photographs Division collections, we offer general rights information and specific rights statements through the “Rights and Restrictions Information” page: http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/rights.html.

Q: Are higher resolution copies available?
A. Yes. For items from the Prints & Photographs Division, higher resolution TIFF versions of the photos are available through the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC). For photographs in the William P. Gottlieb Collection of photographs of jazz musicians and personalities, higher resolution TIFF versions of the photos are available through the Performing Arts Encyclopedia.[need URL for the landing page] Example: Click on the ”Persistent URL” link in the data information for the photograph (the URL looks like "hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsac.1a35075") and when the new catalog record displays, click on the picture for the larger images.

Q: How do I get copies of these pictures?
A: You can download and print copies of the pictures yourself.  Higher resolution TIFF files are available through the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog.  For photographs in the William P. Gottlieb Collection of photographs of jazz musicians and personalities, higher resolution TIFF versions of the photos are available through the Performing Arts Encyclopedia.[need URL for the landing page] Alternatively, you can purchase copies through the Library of Congress Duplication Services.  For further information on purchasing copies, see the Reproductions information page on the Prints & Photographs Division Web site.

Finding more Pictures and Information

Q: Where can I find other photos like these?
A. To see Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information black-and-white photos (approximately 171,000 of them!), another 40,000 George Grantham Bain Collection news photographs, more panoramic photographs, as well as many of the other photographs, prints, posters, cartoons, and architectural materials in the Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division collections, visit: the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog.  The catalog includes more than 1 million digitized items, and descriptions of about 75% of the entire Prints and Photographs Division collections.

Q: Where do I find out more about LC image collections? What else do you have?
A: The Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division holds a wonderful array of photographs, fine and popular prints and drawings, posters, and architectural and engineering drawings--some 14 million items, in all. The collections are international in scope, but they are especially rich in materials produced in, or documenting the history of, the United States and the lives, interests and achievements of the American people. For more information about collections in the Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, you might want to start by visiting the Prints & Photographs Division Web page, which includes links to collection guides, lists of images on popular topics, and the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog, which includes more than one million digitized items and describes millions of un-digitized holdings, as well.

Other parts of the Library of Congress also hold images, and you may want to visit their Web pages, as well, including the:

Some of the collections from these units are presented through the American Memory part of the Library of Congress Web site. The exhibitions portion of the Web site also offers highlights from the collections.

Technical Information

Q: How did you load the photos and descriptions? Did you load them one by one?
A:
We loaded the photos and descriptions in batches. A Library of Congress computer specialist used the Flickr API (available on the Flickr Services page) and a java wrapper for that API called "flickrj" available at: http://flickrj.sourceforge.net/. Wrappers are available for a variety of programming languages. Many are listed under the "API Kits" heading on the Flickr Services page. With these tools, he developed a java application that parses the records; creates titles, descriptions, and tags; locates the images on our file system; and uploads the whole set.

Q: How did you digitize the photographs?
A. Generally, we provide information about how we digitized each set of photographs with information about the collection. Scanning specifications for the initial offerings are available:

Q:  Why was a Sinar camera used to create these images?
A.  During the past 15 years, contractors have produced the majority of the digital images of the Library’s photographic collection. The system used to scan the images seen in Flickr was designed to accommodate a wide variety of physical formats, from 35mm film up to large posters and graphic prints.  The contractor used a Sinar 54 digital scan back with a custom built copy stand setup, rather than a commercially available camera system.  The Library’s specifications for this work set requirements for the digital images themselves, but did not specify the system or equipment to be used.

Q: Did you alter these photos in any way? Is the color real? Why do the pictures look so “flat”?
A: The Library produces digital scans to reproduce the photographs in our collections. We are concerned, first, with the physical photograph before us and, secondarily, with the scene that the photographer confronted when producing the image. There is no attempt to clean up dirt or scratches that might appear in the originals (although we blow or brush off surface dust before scanning), and there is no attempt to try to improve the look of the originals. It is worth noting that different issues arise for positive materials--like the slides and color transparencies in the FSA-OWI collection--and for negatives --like the black-and-white photographs in the Bain collection.

  • Originals that are photographic positives - In the case of the FSA-OWI slides and transparencies--and also with color or black-and-white prints--there is a sense in which we try to "match" the original. Since we know that our end-users make different uses of these images (more than just looking at them on Flickr), our matching is carried out in a manner that accommodates the full range of values--picture data if you will--that can be seen in the original. This means that some exposures will appear to be too dark, too light, or show colors that may have shifted over time. The intent is to show the item as it exists in the collection.

    The FSA-OWI color photographs are early examples of Kodachrome color transparencies. The dyes and the development processes used for Kodachrome produced very rich saturated colors, and the scans of these transparencies represent the colors of the original 35mm slide or 4x5-inch transparency as closely as possible.

  • Originals that are photographic negatives - When reformatting photographic negatives like the ones in the Bain collection our goal is not to match the original. Instead, it is to produce a digital image that can provide the same functionality as the original negative. Analog photographic negatives are traditionally used in a darkroom to produce prints that vary according to their purpose. Prints may have rich tonality and deep blacks for an art gallery wall or lighter shadow areas for reproduction in a book or magazine. In a similar fashion, our end-users will use our digital master images to produce outputs that suit their specific requirement.

    The images in the Bain Collection were produced from original photographic glass plate negatives. Scanning technicians use judgment to make sure the light and dark tones of the digital image represent the highlight and shadow areas in the negative without obscuring details. This may make the images appear to be low in contrast. In the online presentation the polarity is reversed to produce a positive image.

    As indicated above, the digital images of both positive and negative originals from our collections are intended to support a wide range of uses and applications: general research in online catalogs, book publications, newspaper articles, exhibitions, print reproductions, detailed image analysis, documentation of photographer's working habits and printing preferences, documentation of photographic film production, and more. Photographs may be used to support forensic study or to serve other types of analysis. For example, a researcher may wish to manipulate tonal representation in order to "see into the shadows" of a photo, to reveal hidden detail. The Library's intent is to provide users with access to the materials in a form that can support any particular output need.

    In addition to the preceding factors, there is another very practical reason for producing digital images of the Library's photographic collections with minimal post-scanning adjustment. In order to support the Library's mission to make its resources available, the scanning operations focus on producing very high quality master images quickly and efficiently. We believe that the availability of over 1 million images in the Library's online catalog provides researchers with a vast resource while allowing for detialed analysis and specialized outputs. The time and expense required to produce perfectly executed and restored digital surrogates would limit the ability to provide scans of large numbers of photographs.

Q: Why is there no EXIF data?
A:
Images were produced with a high-resolution digital copy camera, which doesn’t generate EXIF data.  The master TIFF images available in the online catalog contain some technical information about the scans that were produced. (For an explanation of how to locate the TIFF images, see the question regarding higher resolution images above.

Q: Why is there no IPTC or XMP data?
A:  Descriptive information about the images is maintained in catalog records at the Library and displayed in Flickr and in the online catalog.  Since the Library began making digital surrogates in the early 1990s, many metadata standards for embedded metadata in images have emerged and propagated.  The Library is collaborating with other federal agencies and industry partners to discuss and consider adopting these practices.


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  March 25, 2022
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