A pilot project between Flickr and the US Library of Congress has proved successful, a report says.

Launched on 16 January 2008, the Library’s collection of archived photographs went global in an attempt to maximise public views. An invitation, of sorts, was also sent to Flickr users to become more involved with the project, by allowing them to tag photographs with keywords or phrases that would make photographs easier to index and find.

Within 24 hours of launching, Flickr reported 1.1million total views, a number that increased to 1.9million a week later. Recent figures show the collection of photographs receives an average of 500,000 views a month and has long since crossed the 10million mark in total views.

There was a lot of speculation surrounding the project about whether the collaboration would undermine the Library’s reputation for impartiality, but the Library defends its position, by saying that the ‘benefits appear to outweigh the costs and risks’.

So why has it been so successful? First of all, asking the web community to get involved was sure to spark some interest in the project, the Library says in its report. Secondly, material that may not have been easily found on the Library’s website is now accessible and can be made a ‘favourite’ by Flickr users. The Library also says success can be attributed to the Flickr blog, which spread the word of the project and the fact that high quality images without copyright restrictions are being provided to the users.

Our verdict? Well, with 18 institutions, including the National Media Museum in Bradford and the National Galleries of Scotland, now contributing to The Commons on Flickr, it seems that harnessing the power of online communities is the way forward for large historical libraries looking to save cost and publicise their collections.

BJP has talked to the National Media Museum about their six-month collaboration with Flickr. Find a full report on our website here.

The Commons can be found at www.flickr.com/commons.

Yesterday, BJP was revealing that taking photos of police officers could be considered a crime from 16 February. That's when the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 takes effect. The act amends the Terrorism Act 2000 regarding offences relating to information about members of armed forces, a member of the intelligence services, or a police officer.

In effect, the new set of rules, under section 76 of the 2008 Act and section 58A of the 2000 Act, will target anyone who 'elicits or attempts to elicit information about [members of armed forces] … which is of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism'.

So if you end up taking a picture of a police officer, you could be arrested if that officer thinks the image could be used by terrorists.

You can read our full article here.

However, photographers are not taking it lightly, deciding to fight back. For example, one photographer has set up a Flickr group inviting people to publish photos of police officers they might have taken or will take even after 16 February. Join it here: http://flickr.com/groups/1011510@N21/

Now, for all you fans of stats and photography, here’s a fascinating study on Flickr, as picked up by former BJP news editor Katie Scott at Wired, forever a source of good photography stories.

A map of the world’s most photographed landmarks on Flickr has been developed by a team from Cornell University. The extensive study consists of 35 million images – more than two terabytes of information, gathered over a six-month period on a supercomputer using embedded metadata.

Of little surprise is New York as the most photographed city, though the fifth most photographed location in New York is the flagship Apple store in midtown Manhattan – making it the 28th most photographed place on Earth, higher than the Washington Monument in the US capital. The Eiffel Tower tops the list.

London gets four of the top six landmarks, with Trafalgar Square the most popular and also placing 2nd in the world, with the Tate Modern, Big Ben and the London Eye the others. The full city list:
1 New York City
2 London
3 San Francisco
4 Paris
5 Los Angeles
6 Chicago
7 Washington, DC
8 Seattle
9 Rome
10 Amsterdam

The six degrees of separation theory comes to mind with this killer, and amazingly precise, quote from the team:

"We observe that if two users have taken a photograph within 24 hours and 100km of each other, on at least five occasions and at five distinct geographic locations, there is a 59.8 per cent chance that they are Flickr contacts"