Bull Collection Launched on Flickr Commons

A steadily growing number of libraries, archives and museums have chosen to participate in a historical project on Flickr Commons, a special sub-division of the Flickr image-hosting web service. The American Library of Congress took the initiative to launch Flickr Commons approximately two years ago. Since then, 31 institutions have joined the project, among them, New York Public Library and the Imperial War Museum in London.

The first documents Bergen Public Library has published on this website are photographs from its collections of Ole Bull and Edvard Grieg memorabilia. The pictures have been viewable from the library’s own webpages for some time, but publication through Flickr Commons makes them even more easily accessible.

All pictures published on Flickr Commons are licensed to be shared and have ‘no known copyright restrictions’. Each institution must however interpret the wording of this license according to the laws of its own country. Bergen Public Library is confident that none of the pictures it publishes on Flickr Commons are under copyright restriction, i.e., more than 70 years have passed since the originator’s death. Anyone is therefore free to use the pictures as he or she wishes, whether in a private or in a public context.

Flickr is open to everyone. You can find a link to Bergen Public Library’s page on Flickr Commons here.