Since 2008, the Library of Congress has been sharing historic photograph collections through Flickr. Offering historical photograph collections on this platform gives the Library of Congress a welcome opportunity to share some of our most popular images with a community focused on pictures, and allows a larger public to engage with these images through tagging, commenting, and exchanging information - many of the photographs we share came to us with scanty descriptions!

We offer sets of digitized photos, including the 1,600 color images from the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information, 1,500+ images from the George Grantham Bain News Service, selected panoramic photographs, portraits of jazz musicians and personalities by William P. Gottlieb from the Library of Congress Performing Arts Reading Room, and other photos from the Library of Congress collections that possess these qualities: they have long been popular with visitors to the Library; they have no known restrictions on publication or distribution, and they have high resolution scans. The Library's Newspaper and Current Periodical Reading Room has also offered historic newspapers on the Library of Congress Flickr account.

In our first sixteen years on Flickr, this totaled over 42,000 images.

With the launch of the Library of Congress pilot, Flickr began a new initiative called "The Commons External." Cultural heritage institutions that join The Commons are sharing images from their photographic collections that have no known copyright restrictions as a way to increase awareness of these collections with the general public. The Commons is looked after by the Flickr Foundation External.