Reporting from Auckland, I’m sitting next to Courtney Johnston, Web Editor at the National Library of New Zealand. One of the very first enquiries we received about joining The Commons on Flickr back in January was from Courtney and her team, so it’s a real thrill to be together in person to celebrate their launch today, our sixteenth member!

They’re sharing with us a taste of life in New Zealand between 1880 to 1930, including some beautiful panoramas of the magnificent NZ landscape:

But, really… who better to introduce you to the collection than Courtney herself?

[flickr video=3062869460]

There’s lots more to see in their Commons account: William Price’s Whakarewarewa, James Ring’s West Coast, Shipping in the South Island, and also some lovely shots taken in London in 1918, at the Armistice Day celebrations. (The Library has been doing great stuff with their other Flickr account for almost 18 months now.

In other Commons news, the George Eastman House has released 50 shots of street photography from 1960s New York City by James Jowers, who donated copyright of those works to them in 2007.

And, the Powerhouse Museum team has made a fascinating video that shows amazing detail in one of the photos they shared in The Commons, ‘The Bandstand, Hyde Park.’ Definitely worth a watch.

Yay!