Commons:Deutsche Fotothek

On March 31st 2009, the Deutsche Fotothek and Wikimedia Germany e.V. announced details of a cooperation on a joint press conference. The most visible aspect of this cooperation is the release of some 250,000 images from the Fotothek under Creative Commons cc-by-sa 3.0 and its subsequent uploading to Wikimedia Commons.

I will post more information on this cooperation on this page. In the meantime, you are invited to look at Commons:Bundesarchiv, where a similar kind of cooperation has been described. Your help is appreciated. -- Mathias Schindler (talk) 16:35, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The images being uploaded by the FotothekBot bot and placed in Category:Images from the Deutsche Fotothek. The photographs are (roughly) 800x600 resolution. However, in the future for some pictures, we may be able to request a higher resolution from the State and University Library Dresden (SLUB).

PRESS INFO

Berlin, March 31, 2009 Meeting Point Wikipedia

Cooperation deal with one of the largest libraries sealed.

As the first German library, the Land Library of Saxony - State and University Library Dresden (SLUB) has concluded a cooperation agreement with Wikimedia Germany e.V. In a first step, the German Photo Collection of the SLUB makes available ca. 250,000 image files from its repository for free use to Wikimedia Commons, a sister project of Wikipedia.

The photos, the corresponding captions and further meta data will be uploaded to Commons during the coming months by voluntary helpers of Wikimedia, then connected step-by-step with personal identification data and the relevant Wikipedia articles. Apart from that, the metadata supplied by the German Photo Collection can be enriched, commented on and supplied with geographical detail by Wikipedia users. All results of this work are flowing back to the database of the German Photo Collection. In this way, the SLUB too directly profits from the new collaboration.

No rights of third parties concerning the image material supplied are standing in the way of using it under the free license "Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0". The cooperation will, in the words of Dr Jens Bove, the director of the German Photo Collection, "enhance the publicity and reach of the photographic treasures of the German Photo Collection". At the same time, the SLUB is a clear testament to the support of the international Open Access Initiative, which seeks open access to scientific information. "The collaboration with one of the largest scientific libraries in Germany with Wikimedia and the free media repository Commons is another important step towards the free availability of knowledge.", explains Sebastian Moleski, director of Wikimedia Deutschland.

"This cooperation is therefore exemplary for the strategy of Wikimedia to make the knowledge of humanity accessible to anyone worldwide," Free Access to information, is the motto that is on top, too, of the political agenda of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA). President of the IFLA, Prof Dr Claudia Lux, who at the same time serves as general director of the Central and State Library of Berlin, is therefore very pleased about the cooperation between SLUB and Wikimedia: "This cooperation enables many people worldwide to use library resources and thereby expand their knowledge. That is a benefit for everyone!"

See /Error reports

• Press release, Deutsche Fotothek, March 31, 2009.
• Huge German Donation Marks Wikipedia's Evolution Slashdot
• 250.000 Fotos für Wikimedia Linux Magazin
• 250.000 neue Bilder für Wikipedia unter freier Lizenz Die Presse
• Wikimedia: Hoffnung auf weitere Kooperationen mit Archiven Heise
• Wikipedia bekommt 250.000 Bilder der Deutschen Fotothek Golem
• Bilder aus Fotothek Dresden Deutsche Presse Agentur
• Fotothek veröffentlicht 250 000 Fotos auf Wikipedia Bild.de

• Official Website