I'm contacting you about an initiative regarding extinct animals and cultural heritage. The past few weeks I was looking for unknown 19th century photos of the extinct passenger pigeon to help a research project. While looking for the photos, I realised that even the existing images are not really available to the public even though they are in public domain. There is not only no central place to find all the photos but the various holding archives are not providing high quality and freely usable photos. This concerns not only PP photos but actually all photos about extinct animals are difficult to access (and this is a general problem with historical photos).

This inspired me to write a manifesto addressing cultural institutions to release public domain photos for the public. It also contains a suggestion that the best way to do this is by using Wikimedia Commons. You can read the text here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1odIjnw3jbuTXYoOChroFIi0cEp4W3Hrdfu3xhY89fRc/edit?usp=sharing

What do you think? Would you like to "join" the manifesto by signing it? I'm still inviting more professionals to participate and I'm planning on some kind of a decentralised publication so it could appear on multiple sites at the same time to reach a wide audience working in related areas. If you know others whom you think would be interested in signing, feel free to forward my email or just send their contacts to me.

Best wishes,

Adam Harangozó