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(At the new Garden Blog, Pressure-treated wood and gardening: newer solutions)

Want to see a photo of a Newport Light Infantry Miter Cap, circa 1775?

Public.resource.org has liberated all 6,288 Smithsonian images and uploaded them to Flickr.

Among them are photos of Dr. Ruth Simmons, including the one at right, captioned,

SI Neg. 2001-13419.16a. Date: 11/7/2001...Dr. Ruth Simmons, eighteenth president of Brown University speaking at the National Press Club. She's the school's first female president, and the first African American to lead an Ivy League school. ..Credit: Jim Wallace (Smithsonian Institution)

Here's their explanation, which begins,

We write to you today on the subject of SmithsonianImages.SI.Edu, a government ecommerce site built on a repository of 6,288 images of national significance. The site is breathtaking in scope, with imagery ranging from the historic cyanotypes of Edward Muybridge to historic photos from aviation, natural history, and many other fields. If the Smithsonian Institution is our attic, these photos are our collective scrapbook.

However, the web site imposes draconian limits on the use of this imagery. The site includes a copyright notice that to the layman would certainly discourage any use of the imagery. While personal, non-commercial use is purportedly allowed, it requires a half-dozen clicks before the user is allowed to download a low-resolution, watermarked image. An image without the watermark and at sufficient resolution to be useful requires a hefty fee, manual approval by the Smithsonian staff, and the resulting invoice specifically prohibits any further use without permission...

But we taxpayers own these images.

The Smithsonian Institution is a trust instrumentality of the United States of America chartered by the U.S. Congress to "increase and diffuse knowledge."

...To understand why the Smithsonian is over-reaching when it comes to photographs, one must remember that works of the U.S. government have no copyright protection whatsoever. Works of the United States Government are in the public domain.

Public.resource describes itself at the end of this document as, "a new non-profit dedicated to the creation of public works projects on the Internet."

Enjoy browsing our American scrapbook.

Here's a Union drum

SI Neg. 2001-7974. Date: na....Wooden body painted with shield-breasted eagle holding ribbon with the inscription, E pluribus unum, or out of many, one. .This drum is a military issue rope-tension snare drum. It was used in the Civil War by Samuel Kyle, who served as a private in Captain James Christie's Company K, 22nd New Jersey Volunteers. The eagle embellishment on the side of the drum was a common design but varied from manufacturer to manufacturer...Credit: Don Hurlbert/Rick Babusci (Smithsonian Institution)