Celebrating five years of Flickr Commons

Unidentified Flying Object sightings chart

Unidentified Flying Object sightings c.1969 (ref: AIR 20/11612)

Yesterday marked the fifth anniversary of the launch of the Flickr Commons. There are now more than 250,000 images in the Commons, from 56 different libraries, archives and museums.

To celebrate, the Library of Congress, one of the original members, has pulled together galleries of the most viewed and favourite images from the Commons.

 

 

Our three most viewed images are:

UFO sightings chart (right)

 

 

 

Charging a drift of snow

Photograph of effect of three engines & snow plough charging a five feet drift of snow

"Photograph of effect of three engines & snow plough charging a five feet drift of snow at Altnabreac, Caithness." Photograph by James Johnston. 1895 (ref: COPY 1/419/912)

and

The Big Three at Yalta

Yalta Conference, Crimea. Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin

Yalta Conference, Crimea. Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin. February 1945 (ref: INF 14/447)

The National Archives’ photostream has over 17,500 images. Many of these have been uploaded as part of the ongoing Through a Lens projects that have inspired information sharing and even been used in creative craft projects.

In total, our Flickr account and images have had just under 5 million views (4,869,903 as of the evening of 16 January 2013).

But one of my favourite images has to be this one, of former staff playing cricket outside the Chancery Lane offices in London during the Blitz.

Public Record Office staff play cricket in London during the Blitz

The National Archives (then Public Record Office) staff play cricket outside Chancery Lane offices in London during the Blitz. (ref: PRO 50/59)

 

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