Flickr: The Commons

In conversation with Aaron Guy (my archive guru) he recalled the Sunderland University Photography Conference from 2011 and how some talks/papers may be of use to me. I couldn’t be more grateful for his effort in helping me retrieve this information: he successfully got the webpage of the talk back online to browse. The last section of talks was called: The Versatile Image: Photography in the Era of Web 2.0. Under this heading I uncovered the paper ‘Flickr the Commons: Challenging Perceptions of Photographic Collections? Summary of talk: Social Media Platforms “generate broad interest on a large scale” Social Media Platforms encourages … Continue reading Flickr: The Commons

Open Access and the Paywall

An unlikely relationship. Seemingly more like arch-enemies in the digital economic landscape as Open Access activists freely oppose the paywall which restricts the everyman to information that apparently “wants to be free”. Paywalls A paywall does exactly what it says on the tin: you can’t go through the gate unless you pay to get in. That is unless you’re a super activist who digs the tunnel underneath or climbs over the top. Paywalls can be subscriptions, such as to Newspapers. This is becoming increasing more common as advertisers are moving away from Newspaper sites and onto cheaper more trafficked websites … Continue reading Open Access and the Paywall

Research: What are Commercial/Public Archives?

In essence, it is exactly what it says on the tin. Commercial archives are archives which are set to make many from its content, whether that be by subscription, auction or buying print copies. Publicly Funded archive are paid for by governments from taxpayers so that information is free. Starting with commercial archives, I have looked at: Magnum Photos Getty Images Time Magazine Two of which are photographic archives and the third a newsprint archive. Although the subject matter is broad, the physical medium is very specialised: Time Magazine’s archive is of its magazines and what that entails: articles. Magnum … Continue reading Research: What are Commercial/Public Archives?