Google have announced that they have made available over 10 million images from the LIFE image archives, most of which have been previously unpublished. To quote:
“We're excited to announce the availability of never-before-seen images from the LIFE photo archive. This effort to bring offline images online was inspired by our mission to organize all the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. This collection of newly-digitized images includes photos and etchings produced and owned by LIFE dating all the way back to the 1750s.
Only a very small percentage of these images have ever been published. The rest have been sitting in dusty archives in the form of negatives, slides, glass plates, etchings, and prints. We're digitizing them so that everyone can easily experience these fascinating moments in time. Today about 20 percent of the collection is online; during the next few months, we will be adding the entire LIFE archive — about 10 million photos.”
This is one hell of a resource for pretty much anyone, from education establishments and students all the way through to people like us looking for inspiration and to look into the incredible talents of those that went before us and our compatriots out there capturing the world today in all its beauty and ugliness - so that we may all have our very own little window on our lonely planet.
You can even click to get a full screen resolution version of the image. And they are not half bad...
Obviously there is a business model behind this - It’s Google after all - By making a few clicks, you can have a nice print winging its way to you courtesy of the LIFE / Google partnership - Oh and a few quid (bucks) too.
My cynical nature often kicks in at this point when I see announcements of this nature. But, I have to say that in this case, it has not even opened its eyes, let along reared its rather ugly cynical head at this news.
Sure there is a business model here and it certainly hasn’t been done out of the goodness of their hearts, which in itself is certainly no crime - We all need to eat. But considering you can have access to this sheer volume of ‘quality’ & historic material - At a pretty reasonable resolution too, for free.
And then there is the ability to search for something you really fancy and then instantly order a nice print of something that is meaningful to you, a loved one or anyone else for that matter.
Not too often I’ll say this - But, ‘Nice one Google!’
I used to work in the archives at time. There are so many astonishing pictures that will rock your socks off. Try using some of these images with a vision board. See an example vision board here: www.TheVisionBoardKit.com
Posted by: Ron Towns | November 19, 2008 at 05:36 PM