In early 2008, Flickr launched the Commons to showcase the public photo collections of libraries, museums and archives from around the world. The Library of Congress was the first to start adding their collections and New York Public Library (probably) the most recent.

The two main objectives of the Commons are to increase access to publicly-held collections and to enable the general public to contribute information and knowledge about the images.

Christmas on HMAS Benalla, 1944 by Clifford Bottomley

So far there are 17 institutions contributing photographs including from Australia, the Australian War Memorial (photostream), Powerhouse Museum (photostream) and the State Library of New South Wales (photostream).  Other contributing institutions are from Portugal, New Zealand, France, Canada, United Kingdom, and the Netherlands.

The image included here is from the Australian War Memorial’s collection. In the Commons, all contributing institutions declare that the images they contribute have “no known copyright restrictions“.  The link through to the AWM’s site showed that for this particular image the copyright had expired. Having a blanket statement for images may be simpler for the institutions involved and Flickr too I suppose, but for the user it would a great help to have more specific information about rights if it is available.

There are some beautiful images from George Eastman House’s collection in the Commons, including colourful fashion magazine cover images and layouts and postcards.

You could spend hours browsing through these collections. While you are there, don’t forget to add tags and comments.