Digital libraries: San Diego Air & Space Museum launches its photo collection on Internet

The San Diego Air & Space Museum (www.sandiegoairandspace.org ) launched what could be the largest online collection of aviation images in the world. By using Flickr.com (www.flickr.com/photos/sdasmarchives/), the entire SDASM Library & Archives digitized photo collection will eventually be viewable via the Internet anywhere in the world. To date, 64,000 images have been uploaded, and more than 100,000 digitized images should be online before the end of the year.

Granting public access to the collection online with Flickr.com allows anyone from researchers and school students to aviation enthusiasts, veterans and the general public to view, tag and comment on the images, thereby adding valuable content and context to the collection.

The aviation-related subjects include foreign and domestic military and civilian aircraft, the Flying Tigers, aviation-related biographic photos, the Ryan Aeronautical Archive, and the Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA) archive.

The SDASM Library & Archives contains nearly two million photos, negatives, slides and transparencies, plus thousands of films and videos. The museum is divided into many galleries and launches various exhibitions, among them are: exhibition about Apollo 9, the World War I Gallery, the World War II Gallery, the Golden Age of Flight Gallery, the Modern Jet & Space Age Gallery. The museum hosts a number of lectures, student programs, and other educational events.