[Foundation-l] Library of Congress gives lots of PD photos to Flickr

simonpedia simon at cols.com.au
Tue Jan 29 01:36:55 UTC 2008


phoebe ayers HYPERLINK
"mailto:foundation-l%40lists.wikimedia.org?Subject=%5BFoundation-l%5D%20Libr
ary%20of%20Congress%20gives%20lots%20of%20PD%20photos%20to%20Flickr&In-Reply
-To="phoebe.wiki at gmail.com 
on Sat Jan 26 02:53:22 UTC 2008

said, 

 
Relevant because 1) Flickr is calling their new collaboration "The Commons"
(potential for a bit of name confusion there); and 2) didn't we talk to the
Library of Congress about giving similar collections to
us? All the images being donated are public domain though, so no reason why
we couldn't scoop them up, but (as partnerships going) it would be nice to
get a similar one going. 
HYPERLINK
"http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/118461"http://www.gos
samer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/118461
 

>>>Thanks for this phoebe. I take it this is a professional librarian
talking, so you’d be used to having your perspective ignored. It’s a pity
you can’t get across that every National Library is a commons, whose
curators, up to now, have classified their physical stuff by geography. We
all know their old habits have them thinking and classifying global digital
things like this HYPERLINK
"http://www.worlddigitallibrary.org/project/english/about/"http://www.worldd
igitallibrary.org/project/english/about/ as opposed to figuring out how the
framework of an interactive library like Wikipedia might complement National
Libraries. To be fair, it’s because they are trained to classify books
rather than electrons.

 

You’d appreciate that OCLC, like WMF, as a global .org for librarians, is
having a hell of time trying to figure out what should be the next step in
their reformation. You may have seen Brianna’s thread this month on
“Community representation”, about community representation (“where community
are self elected group of people”) who are interested in meta issues, like
wot hang around this thread. You’ll also know the OCLC approach. HYPERLINK
"http://www.oclc.org/memberscouncil/committees/default.htm"http://www.oclc.o
rg/memberscouncil/committees/default.htm

 

I guess we’ll have to wait a while more for the usual infatuation of
duplicating & building bigger libraries starts to wane a bit, and people
start to consider what all their ‘me too’ libraries are for. This question
of course always comes down to a small (self) elected group, advisory board,
BOF, SIG, Council, committee, etc. E.g HYPERLINK
"http://www.internet2.edu/communities/index.cfm"http://www.internet2.edu/com
munities/index.cfm

 

So a question for you.  If we were to treat all forms of groups in the same
manner, as you must with all manner of books. How would you go about
classifying the environment of a global group’s communication, around
subject as opposed to geography (like the WMF chapters are). I’m interested
in what might happen, when I read an (wiki) article, if I could find the
group who justified its existence, and ask its curators for up-to-date
references from whichever meta-format commons they know about. 

 

Perhaps we ought to be considering partnering  with Questionpoint rather
than “scooping up” and duplicating. Regards, simon  


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