Back in December 2008, the German Federal Archives donated 100,000 images to Wikipedia documenting the history of Germany. Not only that, but more has come from Germany. Today, German libraries donated yet more images to the Wikimedia Commons. All the materials are also provided direct from the Archive as well. One presumes that this project will entail preserving copies in other locations as well. I certainly appreciate this sort of leadership from Germany. It strikes me as an improvement from a recent book by a former President of the French National Library who decried efforts by Google to digitize books (in English, this book was called Google and the Myth of Universal Knowledge : a view from Europe (2007) versus the original French title Quand Google défie l’Europe : plaidoyer pour un sursaut (2005).

Let me be clear that I recognize that these are different projects in so far as they deal with different media (books vs. photos) and differing intellectual property regimes (public domain vs. mixed copyrighted & public domain). That all said, in many academic circles (and some library circles), it is commonplace to critique Google for its failure to conform to various canons of professionalism or beliefs about intellectual freedom (the company’s cooperation with China’s Internet firewall is well known, such as can be seen in this 2006 BBC article). Such criticisms have their place and can lead to lead to worthwhile critical thinking. However, I think it is better to build something better rather than simply offering criticism. Wikipedia and related projects may not always work, but they are worth keeping in mind.

To my delight, I see that the German Federal Archive has already uploaded 5 black and white images of Canada, including an amusing scene of a conversation in Ottawa involving a sword. If you’ve read this far, you also deserve to see an amusing photo of Albert Einstein from 1931 (here is the link that will give you the meta-data on it).

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