Smithsonian Team Flickr: A library, archives, and museums collaboration in web 2.0 space

Abstract

The Flickr Commons was created as a forum for institutions to share their rich photographic collections with the emerging Web 2. 0 audience of Flickr; the Smithsonian Institution was the fourth member of the Commons. The Smithsonian effort was a direct collaborative effort of the libraries, archives, museums, and information technology staff that generated new pathways for collaboration between these units. As the world's largest museum complex, these Smithsonian units serve as a microcosm for collaboration in the information age. The Flickr Commons project provided insights into how the knowledge, skills, and abilities of libraries, archives, and museums (LAM) can converge in the Web 2. 0 environment to provide collection access to new, and in some cases unknown, audiences. Simultaneously, by putting "LAM" content into an environment that allows for direct interaction by these audiences, the knowledge of the content for holding institutions is enriched. By exposing Smithsonian content within the Flickr environment, the Institution is learning what content is desired by the Web 2. 0 world, how to bring crowd-sourcing into professionally curated collections, and how to bring diverse institutional skills together in a collaborative project. © 2009 US Government.