The Smithsonian Releases 2.8 Million Images Into Public Domain

February 25, 2020 5:17 PM

The new digital collection includes two- and three-dimensional images from all 19 Smithsonian museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives and the National Zoo. Everything is released under a Creative Commons Zero license. Jump down the rabbit hole at the Smithsonian Open Access portal.
posted by carter (14 comments total)

I saw this today and have been looking forward to getting home and digging into it! This is so, so cool.
posted by curious nu at 5:21 PM on February 25, 2020

OMG...I was literally right this second looking for images of zoo animals for a photoshop project. Thank you.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 6:02 PM on February 25, 2020 [2 favorites]

The site interface is still wonky -- loading more than one page of results makes the page start to destroy itself -- but the stuff here is a treasure and I really want to dig in.
posted by ardgedee at 6:18 PM on February 25, 2020

I assume because it is new that it might be buggy for a while. I found an email address - [e-mail] - and sent a specific comment in.
posted by carter at 6:35 PM on February 25, 2020 [1 favorite]

Awesome! OER for the win!
posted by doctornemo at 7:51 PM on February 25, 2020

Oh my.

Oh my.

Oh...

...my.
posted by darkstar at 8:38 PM on February 25, 2020 [2 favorites]

Mailing wrapper: In 1958, Harry Winston mailed the Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian. I've heard of diamond merchants routing posting gems through registered mail because safe, reliable, anonymous, etc. But in this instance, he used a mailing label that had "Harry Winston, Inc" printed right on it. Plus he had a postage meter churn out $145 worth of postage so as to include insurance. So, not exactly flying under the radar here.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 9:16 PM on February 25, 2020 [7 favorites]

It seems like we get one of these announcements every month. It’s hard to keep track of all the wonderful stuff that’s been made available.

Is there a clearinghouse that collects (or registers) all these archives? Like a card catalog or something?
posted by notyou at 9:44 PM on February 25, 2020 [3 favorites]

I starting in the C.
posted by clavdivs at 10:09 PM on February 25, 2020

Woo! My next five album covers thank you!
posted by mmoncur at 11:10 PM on February 25, 2020 [4 favorites]

notyou, if you're looking for a digital card catalog ;) you can try the Digital Public Library of America (previously), and Europeana (previously).
posted by carter at 4:25 AM on February 26, 2020 [4 favorites]

(Maybe it's worth revisiting these on the front page ...)
posted by carter at 4:26 AM on February 26, 2020

I think it's being hugged to death right now....but I'm looking forward to exploring their NASM archives for pictures of cool space-ey stuff.
posted by Quindar Beep at 6:57 AM on February 26, 2020

The facet search works very well. Here's all 8 pictures of metal sculptures of men. Their topic anthology is a little Borges; "Chinese Art", then "Gilding", then "Cats". But it's workable.

Do I have this right, there's only 74 objects in the 3d data set? I don't mean to complain, but I fear I missed something.

Every time I see an online collection of this I think of Aaron Straup Cope and his work on digital collections. His obsession with the idea every object should have a unique, permanent identifier and that in some sense museums are just managers of identifiers. I don't have anything good writing to point to, his hand is more visible in his work at museums (and before, Flickr). He did a lot of great work while at the Cooper Hewitt.
posted by Nelson at 7:25 AM on February 26, 2020 [1 favorite]