Van Gogh, Monet, and… Mackinac Island? How CC Searchers are searching the commons

This photo of fudge on Mackinac Island is one of the most popular photos on CC Search. “Book Club on Mackinac Island” by Kate Ter Haar is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

We launched our new CC Search tool in February with an amazing release from the Met Museum. Since then, over a million people have visited the site, searching for a wide variety of terms – many of which are related to the Met’s collection. Surprisingly popular searches include “Mackinac Island,” a 3.8 square mile island off the coast of Michigan. (Vacation on the mind, anyone?)

The tool is still in beta, but we’re making improvements to it every day, improving usability in the commons and providing a “front door” to help people access over 1.2 billion works, 9,994,327 of which are currently in CC Search.

Below, find some highlights from the last few months of searches. Be sure to sign up for our email list for more content like this.

Searchin’ Safari

• On average, people spend 4 minutes and 30 seconds on the search page.
• The most traffic was on February 7, the day of the launch, with more than 120,000 visits to the site.
• People have visited CC Search 1,780,000 times since launch.
• CC Search most recently added the Europeana Collection of 430,000 digital objects, bringing the total number of objects to almost 10,000,000.

CC Searchers <3 art:

“Wheat Field with Cypresses” by Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, Zundert 1853–1890 Auvers-sur-Oise) via The Metropolitan Museum of Art is licensed under CC0 1.0

Top ten museum objects, 2/1-7/7:

1. “Wheat Field with Cypresses” by Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, Zundert 1853–1890 Auvers-sur-Oise) via The Metropolitan Museum of Art is licensed under CC0 1.0

2. “Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat (obverse: The Potato Peeler)” by Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, Zundert 1853–1890 Auvers-sur-Oise) via The Metropolitan Museum of Art is licensed under CC0 1.0

3. “Coronation of the Virgin” by Paris, France (?), France, probably Paris via The Metropolitan Museum of Art is licensed under CC0 1.0

4. “291 – Picasso-Braque Exhibition” by Alfred Stieglitz (American, Hoboken, New Jersey 1864–1946 New York) via The Metropolitan Museum of Art is licensed under CC0 1.0

5. “France” by Utagawa Yoshikazu (Japanese, active ca. 1850–1870), Japan via The Metropolitan Museum of Art is licensed under CC0 1.0

6. “Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies” by Claude Monet (French, Paris 1840–1926 Giverny) via The Metropolitan Museum of Art is licensed under CC0 1.0

7. “Cypresses” by Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, Zundert 1853–1890 Auvers-sur-Oise)via The Metropolitan Museum of Art is licensed under CC0 1.0

8. “Washington Crossing the Delaware” by Emanuel Leutze (American, Schwäbisch Gmünd 1816–1868 Washington, D.C.) via The Metropolitan Museum of Art is licensed under CC0 1.0

9. “Camille Monet (1847–1879) on a Garden Bench” by Claude Monet (French, Paris 1840–1926 Giverny) via The Metropolitan Museum of Art is licensed under CC0 1.0

10. “Young Woman with a Water Pitcher” by Johannes Vermeer (Dutch, Delft 1632–1675 Delft) via The Metropolitan Museum of Art is licensed under CC0 1.0

“291 – Picasso-Braque Exhibition” by Alfred Stieglitz (American, Hoboken, New Jersey 1864–1946 New York) via The Metropolitan Museum of Art is licensed under CC0 1.0

Top ten search keywords:

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