Archive for the 'Flickr Commons' Category

Carl Curman når ut i världen – artikel i El País

Bosque de la Alhambra, Granada, Spain
Kvinnor och barn i skogen “Bosque de la Alhambra” i Granada. Lokaliserat av en Flickr-medlem. Foto: Carl Curman

Nu når Riksantikvarieämbetet mer och mer ut i världen med sina bildsamlingar. Nyttan och nöjet med att visa bilder på en global och social webb som Flickr Commons blev ännu mer uppenbar den 12 augusti, då en artikel om Carl Curmans spanska fotografier från 1878 publicerades i Spaniens största dagstidning El País.

En Flickr-medlem – “MoehAF” (Mokhtar Atitar de la Fuente) – kontaktade oss för ett tag sedan via Riksantikvarieämbetets sida på Flickr Commons. Han är bildredaktör på El País och ville skriva om Carl Curmans spanska fotografier.

Resultatet blev en utförlig artikel om bilderna, om Carl Curmans bakgrund och fotografiska verksamhet och om resan till Spanien 1878 som nygift med Calla Curman. Nyttan för Riksantikvarieämbetet med att visa bilder på Flickr och få hjälp med bildidentifikation beskrivs också.

Sacromonte, Granada, Spain
Sacromonte i Granada. Lokaliserat av en Flickr-medlem som också identifierade gator och en kyrka på bilden. Foto: Carl Curman

Gensvaret för artikeln – som också spreds via Twitter – blev enormt. Fredagen den 13:e registrerades 26 270 enskilda visningar på Flickr Commons av Riksantikvarieämbetets bilder eller bildström. Under fredag – söndag registrerades sammanlagt över 47 000 bildvisningar.

Flera av bilderna har sedan artikeln publicerades blivit lokaliserade genom Flickr-användarnas kommentarer och i “notes” (kommentarer som läggs in i bilderna). De har också identifierat byggnader, kyrkor, gator och annat. En diskussion pågår i kommentarer – om platser och om spanska dräkter och byggnader.

Internet är inte institutionellt eller nationellt – det är globalt. Vi söker upp världen – och världen tackar oss – inte bara konkret genom att uttrycka uppskattning, utan också genom att ge oss ny information som vi behöver för att höja kvaliteten på de samlingar vi förvaltar.

Ett annat givande möte – denna gång ett fysiskt – var ett besök jag gjorde på Library of Congress, the Prints and Photographs Division, i Washington, DC i början av juli. Där hade jag bland annat nöjet att diskutera Flickr Commons med amerikanska kollegor på den institution som tog initiativet till The Commons 2008. Vi pratade om det dagliga jobbet, om framtida planer och om våra gemensamma erfarenheter av hur otroligt bra det funkar att visa bildsamlingar på Flickr – om all hjälp vi får med taggning och bildidentifiering och om den uppskattning vi får av alla som “bara” är jätteglada över att vi visar bilderna och delar med oss.

>> Anna Boman jobbar med bildsamlingarna och Flickr Commons på Riksantikvarieämbetet.

Visby förr och nu – ett bildperspektiv


Foto: Bengt A. Lundberg, april 2006

Två fotografer har med 118 års mellanrum klättrat upp i tornet till Visby S:ta Maria domkyrka för att föreviga vyn över Visby mot Östersjön, med hamnen och Almedalen. En hel del har förändrats, men mycket är sig likt. S:t Lars medeltida kyrkoruin i förgrunden ser ut att spana ut över Almedalen och havet.


Fotograf: okänd, 1888

Den äldre bilden från 1888 visas också på fotosajten Flickr Commons, där hittills över 600 bilder ur Riksantikvarieämbetets bildsamlingar har laddats upp för att visas, kommenteras och delas med bildintresserade från en hel värld.

Ta en titt i Flickr Commons på fler bilder från Visby och Gotland, eller från andra delar av Sverige och Europa för omkring 100 år sedan eller mer.

>>Anna Boman jobbar med bildsamlingarna och Flickr Commons på Riksantikvarieämbetet

RAÄ på Flickr Commons – ett pilotprojekt i backspegeln

Baderskan Stella från Lysekil. Foto: Carl Curman
Baderskan Stella från Lysekil. Foto: Carl Curman

Den 17 mars 2009 lanserade Riksantikvarieämbetet sina första bilder på den stora internationella bildsajten Flickr Commons och slog därmed följe med bland andra Library of Congress och Smithsonian Institution. Det har varit ett fantastiskt roligt och spännande projekt. Nu ligger projektets avrapportering ute för den som vill fördjupa sig i hur vi har tänkt och vilka resultaten blev. Några positiva effekter i korthet:

  • direkt feedback från användarna.
  • mycket trafik; på ca nio månader sågs bilderna (enskilda visningar) 368 227 gånger. I genomsnitt har varje bild setts knappt 1 000 ggr under tidsperioden mars till december.
  • kvalitetshöjning av data (felrättning och tillförande av information, inlänkning av andra resurser på webben). Vanliga dagar har antalet besökare varit mellan 800 och 2 000.
  • stort intresse av media och bloggvärlden, trots mjuklansering i form av ett blogginlägg. En artikel publicerades också på externa webben. Resultatet blev ca 70 tidningsartiklar (bl a Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet och Internetworld), radioreportage och ett stort antal blogginlägg. Riksantikvarieämbetet har lyfts fram som en modern myndighet med spännande webbnärvaro. Intresset visade sig också i besöksstatistiken med ca 5 000 besökare per dygn dagarna efter lanseringen (Jfr Kulturmiljöbild med ca 6 000 besökare per månad).
  • Stort intresse från omvärlden i stort – allt från enskilda personer, andra kulturarvsinstitutioner och myndigheter upp till regeringsnivå.

Nu ingår Riksantikvarieämbetets Flickr Commonsverksamhet som en del av den dagliga verksamheten.

>> Sophie Jonasson var projektledare för pilotprojektet Riksantikvarieämbetet på Flickr Commons

Swedish towns on Flickr Commons

Gothenburg / Göteborg, Västergötland, Sweden
Gustaf Adolf Square in Gothenburg/Göteborg, about 1900. Photographer: Unknown

This week, we present a new set on Flickr Commons, with photographs of towns from all over Sweden, taken about 100 years ago or more. The photos show town views and city environments, as well as individual buildings of different kinds – harbours, squares, castles, dwelling houses, school buildings, railway stations, administration buildings…you name it!

Visby, Gotland, Sweden
Visby harbour in the 1870s.  Photographer: Unknown

Today, some of the towns we see on the photos are well preserved in their historical parts - like Visby (a UNESCO World Heritage town) on the island of Gotland. Some of the towns have changed a lot since these photos were taken, and some of the buildings we see are replaced by new ones.

How precious aren’t these old images to show us how our environment has changed over time? They might lead us to reflect on different aspects of urban development, both positive and negative.

It would be great to see some modern comparative photographs posted as comments to these old town photos. Welcome to comment, tag and share!

>>Anna Boman is a member of the Flickr Commons team at the Swedish National Heritage Board

Half a million views on Flickr Commons – and a new set created

Château Gaillard Castle at Les Andelys, Normandy, France
Château Gaillard, France. Photo by: Unknown

The 500 000 view on our photos on Flickr Commons were registered today (March 29th). This shows us how well our photos have been received and appreciated by the large audience on Flickr. We’ re more than happy about that! :-)

The Swedish National Heritage Board has also created a new set on Flickr Commons called “Old Europe“. It will show photos from different European countries, taken about 100 years ago or later.

Town street in Rouen, Normandy, France
Street in Rouen, France. Photo by: Unknown

The countries represented are –  in random order – France, Estonia, Germany, Norway, European Russia, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Italy, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Shetland in the UK.  The main motives are towns, ancient monuments and different kinds of buildings in urban or rural environments.

We hope that the observant Flickr members will help us identify buildings and places in the images. Come join us on a tour in Old Europe, beginning in France.

>> Anna Boman is a member of the Flickr team at the Swedish National Heritage Board

March 17th – A year on Flickr Commons

Children at runic inscription from 1678, Risinge, Östergötland, Sweden
Children at runic inscription from 1678, Risinge, Östergötland, Sweden, 1893. Photo: Erik Brate

On March 17th, the Irish celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day. At the Swedish National Heritage Board we celebrate 1 year of successful and rewarding presence as the first Scandinavian agency or institution on Flickr Commons, an international  photo sharing site where cultural heritage institutions (currently 33) from all over the world show copyright free photographs from their collections.  http://www.flickr.com/commons/

A year ago, the Flickr Commons team of the Board (Lars Lundqvist, Sophie Jonasson, Johan Carlström and Anna Boman) uploaded some 100 images from Sweden and Europe in the late 1800s, taken by the physician and amataur photographer Carl Curman. The images went online and the response was immediate. Over 80 000 views were registered after the first week. Numerous newspapers and blogs as well as the Swedish Radio caught the news – efficiently spread through social media except from a blog post and an article published on the Board’s own website.

View from Katarina Lift, Stockholm, Sweden
Photo: Carl Curman, 1890

More collections and sets
The uploading went on and the initial collection “Carl Curman” was on September 1st followed by a collection “Old churches and Ancient monuments“. In February this year the Set “Autochromes of Villa Bonnier” was launched. Today – a year after the release - our photos on Flickr Commons have been viewed more than 482 600 times.

So far, 467 of the photos have been commented on by the Flickr community members and about the same amount has been marked as favorites in various degrees. The photos have been tagged by the members with nearly 1000 different tags and shown in different groups and galleries on Flickr.


User generated content = value!

Especially rewarding has been the interaction with the Flickr community. One of the reasons the Board wanted to try a Web 2.0 photo service was to allow the general public to contribute their knowledge and in that way improve our own data on the photos. It all fell out extremely well – the Flickr community has given us new and valuable information, helped us locate unidentified photos, corrected errors in our data, added tags to increase the searchability, and not the least - given us a lot of positive input on our photographs in terms of pure estimation :-)


Unidentified photos are unidentified no more

Tonsåsen Sanatorium, Valdres, Norway
Tonsaasen Sanatorium, c. 1890. Photo: Carl Curman

Two German photos by Carl Curman were identified by the Flickr community after an appeal to help us locate them was published on the German Flickr Blog and also found its way to German Wikipedia. A couple of photos from Norway were located with the help of Norwegian “ABC Nyheter” and its readers after a journalist caught on Twitter that we needed help to identify and wrote a series of articles about it.

Another reason the Board joined Flickr Commons was to make images from its holdings available to a wider and mostly new audience. Today more than 1 450 Flickr members have added the Board as their contact on Flickr. New users have also been guided to the Board’s own photo database online Kulturmiljöbild since every photo the Board show on Flickr is linked directly to the photo page in the database.


Common Ground

On October 3d the Board participated in the global event of  “Common Ground”  where several of the institutions from the Commons in their home towns presented a slide show with photos from the Commons voted by the Flickr members. About 250 interested visitors joined the Flickr Commons team of the Board to watch the slide show and chat with us in St. Karin’s medieval church ruin in Visby.

Järsnäs Church, Småland, Sweden
Järsnäs Church, Småland, Sweden, 1920s. Photo: Unknown

Ever since the beginning there has been a large interest in media, blogs and the surrounding world of what happens when an agency like ours uses a social web service as Flickr Commons. We’re pleased to tell that our experience is entirely positive and that no clouds have darkened the sky (except perhaps a few spam links in comments, immediately erased by Flickr staff when reported).

Finally, we’re happy to continue uploading copyright free photographs from our collections. Some pics from Old Europe will soon be presented… Welcome to view and share them with us on Flickr Commons! http://www.flickr.com/photos/swedish_heritage_board/

>> Anna Boman is a member of the Flickr team at the Swedish National Heritage Board

Autochromes on Flickr Commons

Villa Bonnier, Stockholm, Sweden
Photographer: Unknown

A smaller collection of autochromes from the Swedish National Heritage Board has now been launched on Flickr Commons in a new Set.

This Set, called “Autochromes of Villa Bonnier“, contains 17 autochromes from the early 1930s (photographer unknown). They all show the exterior and the garden of a former private dwelling house in central Stockholm, called Villa Bonnier after its originator, the Swedish publisher Åke Bonnier Senior (1886-1979). Villa Bonnier was designed by the Swedish architect Ragnar Östberg (who also created the Stockholm City Hall). The Villa was built in 1927, and left by will to the Swedish State in 1981. Today it’s under special care as a listed state-owned historic building.

Villa Bonnier, Stockholm, Sweden
Photographer: Unknown

The autochrome method was an early colour photography process, invented by the French Lumière brothers in the first years of the 20th century, and replaced by colour film about 1935. A kind of diapositives, which couldn’t be copied, were developed through a special method that exposed glass plates covered with dyed potato starch grains.

We’re happy to show and to share these colourful pictures of a unique Swedish building. Welcome to view them on Flickr!

>>Anna Boman is a member of the Flickr Commons team at the Swedish National Heritage Board

Carl and Calla Curman on honeymoon in Spain

Alhambra Palace, Granada, Spain
Alhambra Palace, Granada, Spain. Photo: Carl Curman

Starting today and during the following weeks we (the Flickr Commons team of the Swedish National Heritage Board) will upload a series of photographs taken by Carl Curman in Spain in 1878.

The physician and health care pioneer Carl Curman travelled a lot in Europe, often in company of his wife Calla (surname Lundström as a maiden and Liljenroth in a previous marriage). The main purpose was to study health resorts, but also to study art and architecture and enjoy social life. As newly married in 1878 Carl and Calla made a trip to Spain to spend their honeymoon in Andalusia where they visited towns like Ronda and Granada.

As a devoted and skilful amateur photographer Carl Curman documented his travels with his camera. Several of these European photographs from the late 1800s are shown on Flickr Commons, in the set “Carl Curman – Europe“.

Unidentified town in Andalusia, Spain
Unidentified town in Spain. Can you help us out? Photo: Carl Curman

During the trip to Spain Carl Curman took pictures of towns, landscapes, buildings as the Alhambra, Spanish people – and of course of his wife Calla. Many of them are blue cyanotypes. We have now chosen some of these photographs to be digitized and shown on Flickr Commons.

Since we’re not certain of the locations of some of the pictures we hope that the Flickr community can help us locate them. We welcome you all to view, enjoy and share these photographs from Spain in 1878!

>> Anna Boman is a member of the Flickr Commons team at The Swedish National Heritage Board

Winter on Flickr Commons

Winter at Djurgården, Stockholm, Sweden
Photo: Carl Curman

A New Year has begun… and we on the Flickr Commons team at the Swedish National Heritage Board are pleased to continue uploading nice old photographs to our Flickr Commons account.

Winter in Lysekil, Sweden
Photo: Carl Curman

Right now we show some wintry photos (to match the prevailing climate!) and others from Sweden taken by the physician Carl Curman in the late 1800s. All while we’re preparing for the imminent release of a series of photos taken by Curman during a trip to Spain in 1878. I’ll be back to tell you more about that!

We’re also very pleased that the 400 000:th view was registered on our account yesterday. Thanks a lot for the interest you all show for the photos. We’re so happy to share them with you!

>> Anna Boman is a member of the Flickr Commons team at The Swedish National Heritage Board

Live from Common ground in Sweden

Fall has arrived in Visby, it has rained throughout the day and now the wind has increased in strength. In the church ruin everything is quiet, a lot of people are coming and going and several are sitting dead silence and watching the photos. We are one hour in the event and we have had about 140 visitors. The atmosphere is magical and we are more than pleased so far.

Watch out for photos from the event on Flickr and Facebook.

>> Johan Carlström is a member of the Flickr Common team at The Swedish National Heritage Board.