On the Commons

Put a bird on it

Our collection of entirely free images on Flickr just got 3,500 high-resolution additions. Thanks, Python!

Everything we’ve uploaded to that account is yours to use in whatever way you want. These are images that have no copyright, donor restrictions, or anything else that might get in the way. They’ve also been uploaded at the highest resolution we have.

You can download the images, use them online, print them, turn them into lovely tea towels or linoleum.

(We’d love it if you linked back to us when you do, you don’t have to.)

The new uploads came from our free download pool, which is full of – you guessed it – images you can download for free. So why did I spend far too long writing terrible code to pipe them all up to Flickr?

First, there’s a ton of people on Flickr who are never going to come to our site. Why not get our stuff right in front of their faces?

Secondly, our interface for downloading these images isn’t great. You need to log in with RealMe and take the image you want through our whole image ordering process. On Flickr, zooming in to see details or downloading the size you want is far easier.

Lastly, I wanted to show that sharing our open content is possible at a large scale. I’m hoping this is going to make it easier for us to open up and share more from the collections.

What’s next?

We’ll be releasing more images, at the collection level, as they’re checked and cleared. That’ll probably mean repeatedly needing to upload dozens (or thousands?) of images in a go.

When that happens I’ll have a much cleaner script that is easier to use, and more reliable. From start to finish, it should:

• Go over the list of images we’ve picked out for inclusion

• Check if an image has already been uploaded, discard it if so

• Get the list of ID numbers we’re working with and send it off to NDHA so we can get the high-res tiffs

• Rename the files with their DigitalNZ identifiers

• Smoothly handle authentication with Flickr

• Grab all the metadata

• Sort images into their collections

• Upload!

• Mark each upload as done so we can run it in batches

Have a look at the code on GitHub

Read on for technical muckery!

Bleep bloop

Moving the files and all their info had several steps:

• Identify the free downloads

• Check if any were already on Flickr, and see what was on Flickr but not in the Free Downloads

• Get the source files

• Get their metadata

• Upload them with all that metadata

And to avoid getting lethal clicking finger strain or dying of boredom, do it all automatically 3,500 times over.

2 APIs and a bunch of messy Python

To write this code I picked Python, because it’s the language I’m most familiar with, and it’s well supported with helpful modules and advice around the web.

Step one was building a list to tell me what’s actually in the free download pool. Happily, natlib.govt.nz runs off the DigitalNZ API, making that information findable via API.