Library of Congress places photos on Flickr

The Library of Congress today launched a pilot project with Flickr -- of the ~14 million prints, photos and other visual materials at the LoC, they've uploaded about 3,000 copyright-free photographs from two popular collections to a new Flickr account. The big idea: get folks to tag 'em all. Why? Spokesperson Matt Raymond explains:

[M]any photos are missing key caption information such as where the photo was taken and who is pictured. If such information is collected via Flickr members, it can potentially enhance the quality of the bibliographic records for the images.

We’re also very excited that, as part of this pilot, Flickr has created a new publication model for publicly held photographic collections called “The Commons.” Flickr hopes—as do we—that the project will eventually capture the imagination and involvement of other public institutions, as well.

From the Library’s perspective, this pilot project is a statement about the power of the Web and user communities to help people better acquire information, knowledge and—most importantly—wisdom. One of our goals, frankly, is to learn as much as we can about that power simply through the process of making constructive use of it.

From Xeni Jardin on BoingBoing