One of our goals when we started revitalizing Flickr Commons was to bring in new members. We’re so excited for you to meet them. We’re starting small but mighty.

Bringing in new people gives us a chance to spiff up our existing procedures and documentation, test out our onboarding documents, and make new friends. It also places even more precious memories and cultural heritage into a space that has long term plans, with no known copyright restrictions.

Best of all, all of these folks are existing Flickr users so we can share some of what’s special about them with you before our official “relaunch.”

Without further ado, here is our new cohort. Welcome!

Community Archives of Belleville and Hastings County

Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/cabhc/

Website: https://www.cabhc.ca/

These community archives, located in Belleville Ontario are comprised of “textual records, photographs, maps, newspapers, and other materials that provide information about the people, places and development of Belleville and Hastings County, Ontario.”

This covers the community of about 55,000 people, possibly nicknamed Bellevegas if Wikipedia is to be believed, on the Eastern end of Lake Ontario.

They’ve been posting content to their blog since 2015 including a story of archival survival, a low-tech crowdsourced assessment rolls project, and a tale of reassembling a scrapbook’s pages based on archival material held in three separate archives.

State Archives of North Carolina

Flickr: https://flickr.com/photos/north-carolina-state-archives/
Website: https://archives.ncdcr.gov

The North Carolina State Archives are located in Raleigh, North Carolina. They use their Flickr account to highlight some of the unique and interesting items in their collection. They also interact with the Flickr Community to try to get better information for their unidentified and poorly identified photographs.

Viewing their pictures gives you a great look at both the rural and urban parts of the state. One of my favorite albums is the Carolina Power and Light Photograph Collection, holding images from the photographic library of Carolina Power and Light. The pictures cover 1900 through 1975 give glimpses into random slices of North Carolina.

I have a personal soft spot for the Sidney E. Rochelle Photograph Collection a much smaller collection showing motorcycles in and around Durham in the early 1900s. This is where I found the single photograph of Della Crewe on her Harley Davidson motorcycle, with a sign saying “Around the World on a Harley-Davidson.” Intriguing! That image, thanks to its open license, now illustrates her Wikipedia page.

The Archives have had a blog since 2007, starting from when the State Library and Archives Building was undergoing renovations. They now have several more. There are a lot of fun stories in there though I am always partial to the odd ones.

Port Morien Digital Archive

Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/portmorienarchive/

Port Morien, formerly called Cow Bay, is an historic village located on the rugged east coast of Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, Canada. It is now primarily a fishing village, but it is steeped in coal mining history. It is the location of the first commercial coal mine in North America in 1720, as well as the site of the first Boy Scout troop in North America in 1908.

Local history has been well preserved in the community over the years. Historic plaques have been installed, seniors have been interviewed, and there have been a number of audio visual presentations about the community. In addition, numerous books have been written about various aspects of Port Morien history.

Keeping with the rich tradition in preserving heritage, a small group of community volunteers have collected approximately 2900 photos of our community of Port Morien. It started as a project that was developed in conjunction with the community homecoming in 2015 called Morien Memories. Photos and short videos include people and places from the past as well as the present. Our mission is to provide a digital visual record of our community for future generations to enjoy.

Look at one Flickr Commons item and you can see its connections to other items, within the Commons and beyond. The two main organizing methods are Albums and Galleries.

• Albums and Collections (sets of albums) – a member curating and organizing their own photos
• Galleries – a member curating photos from others’ collections

Admirable Albums

Here’s an example photo, a favorite from the Library of Congress.

Going to that photo’s web page shows where else it appears.

It’s in one album from the LOC called Not An Ostrich and thirty-seven different galleries including “People with books,” “badass women,” and “Taking on the World” all of which are fun to explore.

Unlike physical photo albums, digital images can be in more than one album at once so this astronaut photo from NASA is in an album called Astronauts and also one called The Gemini Program.

Some other fun albums from Commons Members include:

• “In memory of the Amundsen-Ellsworth polar flight 1925” from the Preus Museum – an album of an album
• Vesna’s 10 favourite photos – the State Library of Queensland showcases a set curated by one of their followers
• Fairground scenes – glass slides of fairground scenes from the Discovery Museum, Newcastle upon Tyne
• DOCUMERICA – Charles O’Rear – Amtrak – Amtrak’s intercity rail service and life in rural Nebraska from the US National Archives

Learn more about creating or managing Albums on Flickr.

Grand Galleries

A Gallery is a way for Flickr users to curate images in other members’ collections.

This image of a girl dressed like a butterfly from The Field Museum Library is in their Album, called Flower Children, but also six Galleries including Girl Child, storytellers, and one only called “4.”

Searching the Commons for “fun” reveals this photo of Carla Wallenda from Florida Memory which is in thirty-nine Galleries including

• Vintage Circus Performers (Public Domain) – fourteen photos of old-time carnival actors
• Ko-Lor – bright and shiny
• Silly & Fun – people and their antics

Other Flickr users make their own Galleries specifically with Flickr Commons content.

• Oddities from the Commons
• Using Cameras Through Time
• Not all our foremothers wore taffeta and lace

Flickr user wakethesun has created a massive set of Galleries many of which are entirely Flickr Commons content.

Poke around and you’re sure to find something you enjoy!

Learn more about creating, adding or sharing Galleries on Flickr.