Photo by George

The Commons

Help us catalog the world’s public photo archives.

The Commons Help us catalog the world’s public photo archives.

Welcome!

The key goal of The Commons is to share hidden treasures from the world's public photography archives.

Please help make the photographs you enjoy more discoverable by adding tags and leaving comments. Your contributions and knowledge make these photos even richer*

Participating Institutions

FAQ

Rights Statement

A random sprinkling of our participating institutions...

  • Musée McCord Museum
  • National Library of Medicine - History of Medicine
  • Aalto University Library and Archive Commons
  • Vancouver Public Library Historical Photographs
  • National Galleries of Scotland Commons
  • Dundas Museum and Archives
  • National Library NZ on The Commons
  • Riksarkivet (National Archives of Norway)
  • Cornell University Library
  • Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland
  • NASA on The Commons
  • National Museum of Denmark
  • Huron County Museum & Historic Gaol
  • LSE Library
  • The U.S. National Archives
  • National Library of Norway
  • Bergen Public Library
  • Archives of the Finnish Broadcasting Company Yle
  • OSU Special Collections & Archives : Commons
  • Senado Federal do Brasil
  • UBC Library Digitization Centre
  • Ljósmyndasafn Reykjavíkur / Reykjavík Museum of
  • The Finnish Museum of Photography
  • New York Public Library
  • Nova Scotia Archives
  • Jewish Historical Society of the Upper Midwest
  • IWM Collections
  • State Library and Archives of Florida
  • The Gallen-Kallela Museum
  • LlGC ~ NLW
  • Biblioteca de Arte-Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian
  • Australian National Maritime Museum on The Commons
  • tyrrellhistoricallibrary
  • sinaloaarchivohistorico
  • Congregation of Sisters of St. Joseph in Canada

A Commons Sampler

More about The Commons

A new way to share photos on Flickr

The Commons was launched on January 16 2008, when we released our pilot project in partnership with The Library of Congress. Both Flickr and the Library were overwhelmed by the positive response to the project! Thank you!

The program has two main objectives:

  1. To increase access to publicly-held photography collections, and
  2. To provide a way for the general public to contribute information and knowledge. (Then watch what happens when they do!)

FAQ

I work for a cultural heritage institution that would like to be a part of The Commons. How do we do that?

Please let us know you're interested by registering here. It helps a lot if you let us know some background about your institution, and direct us to any online photo collections you already have.

How can I get involved?

We've already seen fantastic contribution from the Flickr membership. Your tags and conversations about the content in The Commons has been wonderful! The best way to get involved is to add a tag or two to the photos you see, and if you happen to know anything else about the subject, by all means add a comment.

What's "no known copyright restrictions?"

This new rights statement is being contained to the institutions participating in The Commons, at the account level. It is a requirement for participation in the program that institutions may rightly claim "no known copyright restrictions" on the content they share. More information.

*Any Flickr member is able to add tags or comment on these collections. If you're a dork about it, shame on you. This is for the good of humanity, dude!!