The online original of the image illustrating this learn node is can be seen in much larger format at the Library of Congress website. The title of the image is Washington, District of Columbia. Crowd at President Abraham Lincoln’s second inauguration and the page where it is found connects to a network of Lincoln era photographs, drawings and beyond, into the sumptuous virtual treasures of this national knowledge institution. The image of the second inauguration is one of three that have recently come to light, as the Library of Congress Blog explains: “after a Library of Congress patron alerted [a curator] to the fact that these visually similar photos had radically different identifications in the Library’s online Civil War photographic negative collection.”
On the Library of Congress Blog this week is this enthusiastic comment by Matt Raymond, the Library’s director of communications who writes the blog, about the power of opening content online:
A user of our Prints and Photographs Online Catalog raised questions about the images, which sent Library of Congress curator Carol Marie Johnson sleuthing. Careful comparisons to the only other two known images from that event and meticulous combing through records led her to this discovery.
My point is that if we can uncover those kinds of treasures, thanks in part to our discerning Web users, imagine what might happen after setting loose hoards of eager photo fans at Flickr.
I’ve heard reports that the story for a good portion of Wednesday was the most-clicked on CNN.com. It was written about by the L.A. Times and was also mentioned on NBC’s “Today Show,” among others.
Even David Letterman made a reference to it on last night’s “Late Show.” That definitely ranks closely in pop-culture significance to the moment when our staff burst into applause when the Library of Congress was first mentioned on-screen in “National Treasure: Book of Secrets”!
The Flickr project referred to is The Commons, and the response from the public to this project announced this month has “been nothing short of astounding.” It is the wisdom of the crowd that is captured in these new methods that are only made possible by opening content online. As Flickr says: Many hands make light work.
More learn nodes at: learnodes.com
