An excerpt from today’s press release:

RICHMOND, Va. (March 25, 2015) — VCU Libraries has been named as the 100th institution to take part in Flickr’s The Commons, an online project that seeks to share hidden treasures from the world’s public photography archives.

As part of The Commons, VCU Libraries’ digital special and archival image collections that have no known copyright restrictions will be discoverable through the photo-sharing website Flickr, as well as through search tools that pull public domain images without known copyright restrictions for use and reuse.

“It’s significant,” said Lauren Work, digital collections librarian. “VCU Libraries will be joining an international group of institutions with the goal to increase public access to image collections that have no known copyright restrictions, which connects directly to our educational mission.”

Joining The Commons will greatly increase the discoverability and potential use of VCU Libraries’ image collections. It will also allow the public to share their knowledge of the images, potentially enriching the collections with comments and tags.