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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/" xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/" xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" > <channel> <title>Flickr Foundation</title> <atom:link href="https://www.flickr.org/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" /> <link>https://www.flickr.org/</link> <description>flickr.org</description> <lastBuildDate>Wed, 02 Apr 2025 12:12:25 +0000</lastBuildDate> <language>en-US</language> <sy:updatePeriod> hourly </sy:updatePeriod> <sy:updateFrequency> 1 </sy:updateFrequency> <generator>https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.2</generator> <site xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">209677621</site> <item> <title>Inheriting the Internet, Part 2: User Research</title> <link>https://www.flickr.org/inheriting-the-internet-part-2-user-research/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[tori]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Wed, 02 Apr 2025 12:07:37 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Amy Sun & Daniel Kim]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Miscellany]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Research]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.flickr.org/?p=9224</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>The post <a href="https://www.flickr.org/inheriting-the-internet-part-2-user-research/">Inheriting the Internet, Part 2: User Research</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.flickr.org">Flickr Foundation</a>.</p> ]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[ <section class="copy copy-text color-transparent-bg"> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-8"> <p>Hi there! It’s Amy Sun and Daniel Kim again, two seniors at the University of Washington Informatics program with a focus on UX/UI design. We’re currently working on a capstone project with the Flickr Foundation on digital preservation, digital legacy, and the many nuances and considerations that come alongside those.</p> <p>This is the 2nd of our blog posts about our Capstone project (you can find the <a href="https://www.flickr.org/inheriting-the-internet-digital-preservation-in-an-age-of-impermanence/">first one here</a>). In this post, we dive into the user research and concept development phase of our project.</p> <p> </p> <h2>Interviewing, Analyzing, and Developing</h2> <p>In the next phase of our project, we conducted stakeholder and user interviews, developing user personas and user journeys based on the information we collected. This was an important step in our design process because it allowed us to lean into the experiences and viewpoints of real people working in the realm of archives or users in a digital environment.</p> <p> </p> <p>We conducted two stakeholder interviews with experts in the field of digital collecting:</p> <ol> <li><a href="https://profiles.si.edu/display/nLippsA9292008">Andrea Lipps</a>, Curator of Contemporary Design and Head of Digital Collecting Department at the <a href="https://www.cooperhewitt.org/">Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum</a></li> <li>A PhD student at the University of Washington iSchool focusing on Indigenous archival practices, who requested to remain anonymous in our research</li> </ol> <p>Following this, we ran <strong>nine user interviews</strong> with our classmates and peers, asking about their experience with photography, online archiving, and social media.</p> <p> </p> <p>Here are the insights we gathered from these interviews that have shaped our thinking:</p> <ol> <li><strong>Ongoing consent</strong>: we learned about institution’s need to ask for consent continuously, no matter how many times a ‘yes’ has been given, one must always ask for consent with digital materials.</li> <li><strong>Collecting vs archiving</strong>: we pieced apart the difference between collecting (gathering for a central theme for display), and archiving (gathering for the purpose of preservation).</li> <li><strong>Digital surrogacy</strong>: we encountered the concept of a digital surrogate, something that provides evidence of existence of an object or artifact – a picture, video, or any media relating to the original artifact.</li> <li><strong>Autonomy</strong>: we reflected on the skepticism of Indigenous peoples to preserve information online for fear (and past experience) of it being used negatively or inappropriately.</li> <li><strong>Ownership</strong>: we thought deeply about the ethics of ownership of family photos taken by or stored by institutions, in the context of Indigenous histories.</li> <li><strong>Literacy</strong>: specifically from our interviews, we got thinking about the literacy of Gen Z students around the concept of digital legacy and preservation. Our interviewees expressed a lot of practices they used in terms of photography and social media that were very similar to preservation practices, but they did not have the right terminology to describe it.</li> </ol> <p> </p> <p>While laboring with these newfound concepts of how people view archiving in both the professional and “amateur” realm, we began to explore design opportunities. We explored embedding ongoing consent models–inspired by frameworks like the <a href="https://www.gida-global.org/care">C.A.R.E. principles</a>–reimagining how <a href="https://www.flickr.org/programs/content-mobility/data-lifeboat/">Data Lifeboats</a> can be “living” documents where consent can be revised at any point of its lifetime. We also explored the possibility to change the display and packaging of Data Lifeboats to allow for “positive friction”during archival workflows that prompted reflection and created a meditative experience when creating a Data Lifeboat. While looking at what ownership and autonomy of a Data Lifeboat look like when a body like the Flickr Foundation gains stewardship over digital artifacts, we recognized a disconnect: these solutions <strong>presupposed a baseline engagement with digital preservation that most users lack. </strong></p> <p> </p> <p>The Data Lifeboat concept, though vital in the Flickr Foundation’s mission, assumes creators already value long-term stewardship – a perspective shaped by the Flickr Foundation’s unique position as a cultural repository. In reality, mainstream users rarely consider archiving and legacy planning without explicit prompting. Why would someone painstakingly curate a lifeboat if they don’t grasp the fragility of digital memory or the stake we have in preserving our histories. We believe if the Foundation wants to democratize the curatorial power to common users, <strong>they need to diffuse their values downstream</strong>.</p> <p> </p> <p>This realization reframed our capstone focus: instead of iterating on the Data Lifeboat itself, we pivoted to <strong>building literacy that makes preservation’s value tangible</strong> – linking archival theory and public motivation. If we can cultivate understanding necessary for lifeboats beyond the niche community of archivists, collectors, and institutions, then memory work can truly be shared among everyday people. Decentralization, democratization, or whatever word best fits this shift in archival work, creates a resilient and distributed network of care that is sustained collectively.</p> <p> </p> <p>Our user interviews revealed that Gen Z engages in informal archival practices through daily social media behaviors–liking, saving, curating “photo dumps” and posting–yet lack the awareness of how these actions are actually translatable to archival work. Despite being digital natives, the first generation to inherit a fully digitized world, the way they view preservation is reactive (e.g. saving viral posts or curating photos) rather than strategic to long-term cultural preservation. So why Gen Z? <strong>We believe that Gen Z is at an inflection point</strong>, ripened just enough to shift their “micro-archives” like individual photo dumps or saved collections into intuitive archiving behavior.</p> <p>To understand this demographic, we developed two user personas to help us better understand the gaps, needs, and goals.</p> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="media-image-gallery"> <div class="grid-container fluid-"> <div class="grid-x align-center grid-padding-x"> <div class="cell large-10"> <div class="item"> <div class="media media-relative ratio-16-9"> <img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" width="1000" height="585" src="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-02-at-13.56.06.png?w=1000" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="" srcset="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-02-at-13.56.06.png 1000w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-02-at-13.56.06.png?resize=300,176 300w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-02-at-13.56.06.png?resize=768,449 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text color-transparent-bg"> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-8"> <p>These two user personas were created with the intention of representing two ends of the spectrum within unconscious archiving on social media. On one end, we created the “<strong>Avid Social Media User</strong>” who lacks intention when posting on social media highlighting a disconnect between digital documentation and digital legacy planning. On the other end, we created the “<strong>Minimal Digital Presence User</strong>” who is intentional about their social media presence and cares more about photo sharing as a personal repository. Both sides of these personas highlight that <strong>anyone can be practicing archival work unbeknownst to themselves</strong>.</p> <p> </p> <p>With all of this information, we concluded that the best way to reach and interact with Gen Z students was to hold an in-person workshop, discussing the use and impacts of digital preservation for this generation. We want to <strong>empower youth to think about their digital legacies</strong>, through educating them on the importance of digital preservation, and through translating everyday social media interactions into archival practices.</p> <p>You can read more about how this workshop went in the next blog-post!</p> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text"><div class="grid-container"><div class="grid-x align-center"><div class="cell medium-10"> <p></p> </div></div></div></section><p>The post <a href="https://www.flickr.org/inheriting-the-internet-part-2-user-research/">Inheriting the Internet, Part 2: User Research</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.flickr.org">Flickr Foundation</a>.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">9224</post-id> <media:thumbnail url="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/04/51834605675_fdb466fd58_c.jpg" /> <media:content url="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/04/51834605675_fdb466fd58_c.jpg" medium="image"> <media:title type="html">51834605675_fdb466fd58_c</media:title> </media:content> </item> <item> <title>Developing a New Research Method, Part 3: Archivevoice in Practice</title> <link>https://www.flickr.org/developing-a-new-research-method-part-3-archivevoice-in-practice/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[George Oates]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 18 Mar 2025 11:07:44 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Creative Archives]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Fellows]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Prakash Krishnan]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Research]]></category> <category><![CDATA["Prakash Krishnan"]]></category> <category><![CDATA[archivevoice]]></category> <category><![CDATA[research fellows]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.flickr.org/?p=9195</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>The post <a href="https://www.flickr.org/developing-a-new-research-method-part-3-archivevoice-in-practice/">Developing a New Research Method, Part 3: Archivevoice in Practice</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.flickr.org">Flickr Foundation</a>.</p> ]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<section class="header "> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x"> <div class="cell "> <div class="content htag-only"> <h1 class="call-out">Developing a New Research Method, Part 3: Archivevoice in Practice</h1> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text color-transparent-bg"> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-8"> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">In </span><a href="https://www.flickr.org/developing-a-new-research-method-part-1-photovoice-critical-fabulation-and-archives/"><span style="font-weight: 400">Part 1</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> of this series, I explored some of my </span><span style="font-weight: 400">past projects working with informal photo archives including uses of the qualitative research method Photovoice. In </span><a href="https://www.flickr.org/developing-a-new-research-method-part-2-introduction-to-archivevoice/"><span style="font-weight: 400">Part 2</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, I developed the research method of Archivevoice that builds on the principles of Photovoice to explore how engaging community members around their own archival materials (e.g. photographs) can be mutually serving for both researchers and their community partners to better understand and take ownership of their histories, experiences, and the challenges they face. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">In this final installment, I share the </span><b>results and reflections of an Archivevoice workshop</b><span style="font-weight: 400"> I conducted with researchers from the </span><a href="https://accessinthemaking.ca/"><span style="font-weight: 400">Access in the Making Lab</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> in the fall of 2024. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">These researchers are all working on individual microprojects that engage in various ethnographic and creative research methods to explore a variety of issues relating to disability studies and environmental humanities. These initiatives are extensions of a broader project developed by the Access in the Making Lab called </span><a href="https://accessinthemaking.ca/project/mobilizing-disability-survival-skills-for-the-urgencies-of-the-anthropocene/"><span style="font-weight: 400">Mobilizing Disability Survival Skills for the Urgencies of the Anthropocene (MDSSA)</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">. </span></p> <h3>Teaching Archivevoice</h3> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">The workshop consisted of three parts. First, I gave an overview of the Archivevoice method and its conceptual background. Next, I did a walkthrough of the Flickr.com website, highlighting the various features of the platform that could be used to tailor their search to make it relevant for their research parameters. This included the various filtering and search parameters, looking at image captions and descriptions, copyright licensing, geodata, tags, comments, albums, and groups. Next, I offered some prompts related to the themes of the MDSSA project and gave the researchers time to browse the collection of photos on Flickr. I collected the photos of interest and assembled them into </span><a href="https://flic.kr/y/3NNkc7W"><span style="font-weight: 400">a Flickr gallery</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">. </span></p> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="media-image-gallery"> <div class="grid-container fluid-"> <div class="grid-x align-center grid-padding-x"> <div class="cell large-10"> <div class="item"> <div class="media media-relative ratio-16-9"> <img decoding="async" width="1024" height="640" src="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/Image-1-Large.jpeg?w=1024" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="" srcset="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/Image-1-Large.jpeg 1280w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/Image-1-Large.jpeg?resize=300,188 300w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/Image-1-Large.jpeg?resize=768,480 768w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/Image-1-Large.jpeg?resize=1024,640 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> </div> <span class="light-caption "><a href="https://flic.kr/y/3NNkc7W" class="caption-link">View the Gallery on Flickr</a></span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text color-transparent-bg"> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-8"> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">Finally, we took a look at the images all together, and each researcher described their reflections on the process, what they found during their search, and what they learned about the process and about using Flickr as a research resource. </span></p> <h2>Access in the Making Lab</h2> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">Access in the Making (AIM) Lab, is an anti-colonial, anti-ableist, feminist research lab working on issues of access, disability, environment and care through creative experimentation. Based in Montréal, Canada (on the unceded territory of the Kanien’kehà:ka nation), AIM’s members include academic and non-academic researchers, writers, and artists. From 2019-2024, I worked as the AIM Lab’s coordinator and am a member of the team working on the </span><a href="https://accessinthemaking.ca/project/mobilizing-disability-survival-skills-for-the-urgencies-of-the-anthropocene/"><span style="font-weight: 400">Mobilizing Disability Survival Skills for the Urgencies of the Anthropocene (MDSSA)</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> project. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">Present at the workshop were five researchers from the MDSSA project: Arseli, Diego, Rachel, Roï, and Tamara. </span></p> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="media-image-gallery"> <div class="grid-container fluid-"> <div class="grid-x align-center grid-padding-x"> <div class="cell large-10"> <div class="item"> <div class="media media-relative ratio-16-9"> <img decoding="async" width="1024" height="640" src="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/Image-2-Large.jpeg?w=1024" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="" srcset="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/Image-2-Large.jpeg 1280w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/Image-2-Large.jpeg?resize=300,188 300w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/Image-2-Large.jpeg?resize=768,480 768w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/Image-2-Large.jpeg?resize=1024,640 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> </div> <span class="light-caption ">Screenshot of virtual Archivevoice workshop with AIM Lab, held in 2024.</span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text color-transparent-bg"> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-8"> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">Arseli Dokumaci is the Principal Investigator of the project, and the other participants are each engaged in different photography-based microprojects that look at the relationships between human extractivist industries and their impacts on the ecological health of the specific environments in Mexico, Canada, Lebanon, and Iraq, respectively. </span></p> <h2>Flickr’s Affordances – Intertextual references demonstration</h2> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">As I am also a part of the research team and am familiar with each person’s project, I began the second phase of the workshop by going through the different affordances offered by Flickr.com’s platform and then showed some images I had pre-selected as examples for the kinds of visual prompts that archived images could provide. One of these photos, labeled “</span><a href="https://flic.kr/p/jexy1J"><span style="font-weight: 400">San Diego, CA – Tijuana, Mexico</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">” is a landscape photo taken January 15, 2014 presenting a stretch of the border wall in the desert between the Mexico-US border. The image is striking and imposing as the frame is almost perfectly quartered by the fence line fading into the distance The stark shadow cast by the fence doubles this feeling, adding weight and gravity to the sense of imposition created by the fence. </span></p> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="media-image-gallery"> <div class="grid-container fluid-"> <div class="grid-x align-center grid-padding-x"> <div class="cell large-10"> <div class="item"> <div class="media media-relative ratio-16-9"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="768" src="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/Image-3-Large.jpeg?w=1024" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="" srcset="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/Image-3-Large.jpeg 1280w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/Image-3-Large.jpeg?resize=300,225 300w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/Image-3-Large.jpeg?resize=768,576 768w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/Image-3-Large.jpeg?resize=1024,768 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> </div> <span class="light-caption ">“San Diego, CA – Tijuana, Mexico” by Living-Learning Programs is licenced under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 <br><a href="https://flic.kr/p/jexy1J" class="caption-link">https://flic.kr/p/jexy1J</a></span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text color-transparent-bg"> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-8"> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">In addition to the visual information that can be gleaned from the photo, the caption and metadata also provide interesting angles to approach and understand the various actors at play in the image. The caption of the photo reads “<em>Day Three: With Border Angles touring Ho[l]tville Cemetery in the desert – leaving water for people crossing the border in the desert (borderangles.org/).</em>” This caption offers key pieces of information such as the context of the visit to the fence, who was there, and what their purpose was. The caption also highlights other MDSSA project themes like access to clean water – a lifesaving essential – that is often denied or inaccessible to migrants traveling to the United States from Mexico. Additional searches also led me to learn that the cemetery is Holtville, a border down in California, has become the final resting place for several unidentified migrants who perished in their journey seeking passage and safe entry to the United States. According to an article on the subject, the inhospitable environment in that area is one of the most common causes of death.[1]</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">The caption also links to Border Angels, a non-profit organization advocating for human rights, and immigration and social justice and seeking a reduction in the fatalities occurring during this migration journey. These intertextual references providing supporting documentation to better understand the socio-political context that these images represent. Another important reference which was noted in the tags of the image as well as in the description of the album in which it was located was the Maquila Solidarity Network which is a labour and women’s rights organization based in Toronto but with a geographic focus in Mexico and Central America. As will be presented shortly, maquilas are an important subject for one of the MDSSA projects.</span></p> <h2><span style="font-weight: 400">Workshop discussions </span></h2> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">To conclude the workshop, once the photos were selected and added to the gallery, each member went around and discussed their experience including their interesting finds as well as challenges faced when it came to searching the archive. Each participant had selected between one and three photos to add to the gallery that related to their respective MDSSA projects. </span></p> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="media-image-gallery"> <div class="grid-container fluid-"> <div class="grid-x align-center grid-padding-x"> <div class="cell large-10"> <div class="item"> <div class="media media-relative ratio-16-9"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="570" src="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/Image-4-Large.jpeg?w=1024" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="" srcset="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/Image-4-Large.jpeg 1280w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/Image-4-Large.jpeg?resize=300,167 300w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/Image-4-Large.jpeg?resize=768,427 768w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/Image-4-Large.jpeg?resize=1024,570 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> </div> <span class="light-caption ">Screenshot of virtual Archivevoice workshop with AIM Lab. </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text color-transparent-bg"> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-8"> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">For each of the participants, this was their first time using Flickr in this way. Each also had their own approach to looking for photos that took them on a unique search pathway. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">Below is a short description of each of the participants’ MDSSA project followed by their discoveries and reflections during the workshop.</span><span style="font-weight: 400"> </span></p> <h3>Researcher: Diego Bravo<br /> Project: The Third Shift: El Tercer Turno</h3> <p><i><span style="font-weight: 400">This work comprises community-based research and ethnographic fieldwork in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, exploring the lived experiences of women and young adult maquila workers. His work examines disabling working conditions in the maquila industry, highlighting the intersection of labour, health, migration, gender, and environmental racism. </span></i></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">For Diego, there were specific keywords he searched related to his project: Ciudad Juarez, maquiladora, and Electrolux. Through these prompts, he selected two photos to discuss. The first, titled </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">a maquiladora</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">, was taken and uploaded in March 2006 by Hilary Mason. In the album to which it belongs, Mason describes the photos as “from the G.O. Mexico trip! In February, 2006, a team of students and faculty from Providence, RI travelled to Tijuana, Mexico to help build schools and study immigration and border issues.”</span></p> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="media-image-gallery"> <div class="grid-container fluid-"> <div class="grid-x align-center grid-padding-x"> <div class="cell large-10"> <div class="item"> <div class="media media-relative ratio-16-9"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="682" src="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/Image-5-Large.jpeg?w=1024" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="" srcset="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/Image-5-Large.jpeg 1280w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/Image-5-Large.jpeg?resize=300,200 300w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/Image-5-Large.jpeg?resize=768,512 768w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/Image-5-Large.jpeg?resize=1024,682 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> </div> <span class="light-caption ">“a maquiladora” by Hilary Mason is licensed under CC BY 2.0 <br><a href="https://flic.kr/p/aVdmy" class="caption-link">a maquiladora</a></span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text color-transparent-bg"> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-8"> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">While not a maquiladora in Ciudad Juarez, the specific site of Diego’s research, he notes the similarities in the two geographies: “but it’s a symbol of the industrial complex of the border of US and Mexico. And it related to me right away because of the aesthetic you get between the desert mountains and the flattened space the maquiladoras use in Ciudad Juarez… This is a prefabricated landscape; the border towns look alike in terms of the maquiladora space and the landscapes – it was interesting.” This allowed us to explore how Flickr can be used to help locate visually similar environments that could give additional context and resources to help respond to our respective research questions. Bringing up the photo I had previously noted of the fence at the US-Mexico border, we were able to identify the Maquila Solidarity Network as a possible collaborator for Diego’s research that he may not have otherwise encountered.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">One of the maquilas he studies is operated by Electrolux AB. The Swedish home appliance company based in Stockholm reported a revenue the equivalent of over $12 billion USD. However, as Diego reports in his project, the working conditions within the maquiladoras producing Electrolux’s appliances are disabling for the employees. The construction of these factory border towns also give rise to other issues including housing and utilities instability as well as gender-based violence and femicide.[2]</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">Through his search on Flickr, he identified an old vacuum product of Electrolux likely produced at one of these maquiladoras. The image, simply named </span><a href="https://flic.kr/p/8JWYNy"><span style="font-weight: 400">e</span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">lectrolux 10-13-2010 11-19-12 PM</span></i></a> <span style="font-weight: 400">is part of a Flickr photo group </span><a href="https://www.flickr.com/groups/2169789@N23/"><span style="font-weight: 400">Electrolux vacuum’s, shampooers & polishers</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">. The group includes images of vacuums as well as advertising media for Electrolux’s vacuum products dating back to the 1960s. Understanding the evolutions of a company’s manufactured products and their demands could help researchers like Diego identify the socio-economic factors that contribute to the development of maquiladora cities like Ciudad Juarez and the consequences it has on the local population and the environment.</span><span style="font-weight: 400"> [3]</span></p> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="media-image-gallery"> <div class="grid-container fluid-"> <div class="grid-x align-center grid-padding-x"> <div class="cell large-10"> <div class="item"> <div class="media media-relative ratio-16-9"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="656" src="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/Image-6-Large-1.jpeg?w=1024" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="" srcset="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/Image-6-Large-1.jpeg 1280w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/Image-6-Large-1.jpeg?resize=300,192 300w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/Image-6-Large-1.jpeg?resize=768,492 768w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/Image-6-Large-1.jpeg?resize=1024,656 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> </div> <span class="light-caption ">“electrolux 10-13-2010 11-19-12 PM” by escapefromyonkers aka galvoguy is licenced CC BY-NC 2.0 <br><a href="https://flic.kr/p/8JWYNy" class="caption-link">https://flic.kr/p/8JWYNy</a></span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text color-transparent-bg"> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-8"> <h3>Researcher: Rachel Rozanski<br /> Project: The Paradise Project</h3> <p><i><span style="font-weight: 400">This project critically examines the environmental naturalization project of the Toronto Port Lands which is toxic land built up out of industrial waste on Lake Ontario. Its waterways are being rerouted and the land is being converted into a mixed-use “waterfront paradise”. Rachel is documenting the changing cormorant populations that use this space as it transforms, and the objects being removed in the excavation process. </span></i></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">Rachel Rozanski similarly has a site-specific research project based in the Port Lands of Toronto, Canada. Currently undergoing a naturalization project, the area which was used as an industrial waste dumping site has been inhabited by cormorants, making up the largest colony in North America.[4]</span><span style="font-weight: 400"> These birds have found ways to make their homes and nests in this otherwise uninhabited area. However, the naturalization efforts which seek to redevelop the Port Lands risk destroying the birds’ habitats. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">While she was not able to find related images to her specific site, she was able to locate picture showing another site undergoing a similar phenomenon. In the image </span><a href="https://flic.kr/p/2gL5iRc"><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Plastic nets</span></i></a> <span style="font-weight: 400">by Askjell Raudøy, taken and uploaded in July 2019, many birds (likely Northern Gannets) are seen resting on a cliffside. Several have used plastic netting to supplement in their nest building. In the comment section of the photo, Raudøy replies to a comment noting that “lots of birds die coz [sic] they get full of plastic or get strangled by nylon lines.” Rachel, in her presentations of her research has noted observing similar phenomenon in Toronto wherein there would be periods of mass death among the cormorant population. She had also noticed and photographed the various pieces of trash that the birds collected for their nests including lighters and cigarette butts and various pieces of plastic such as plastic bags. She believed that it’s likely the birds of the Port Lands suffer a similar fate to those of Runde Island in that either their plastic consumption or their exposure to deadly industrial toxins. At the same time, however, is it this toxic land that is free of human activity that allows them the space to build their colony. </span></p> <h3>Researchers: Tamara Abdul Hadi & Roï Saade<br /> Project: Choreography of the Euphrates</h3> <p><i><span style="font-weight: 400">This project explores the Euphrates River in Iraq through photography and counter-cartography, using a post-colonial and post-conflict lens. It is an attempt to counter-map the entire course of the river in Iraq through images. Documenting its curves, splits, and estuaries and its ever-changing ecology along with its inhabitants, all the while challenging the prevailing decades-long perception of the country shaped by a lens of conflict, violence, and insensitivity. </span></i></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">Other researchers took a different approach to searching in the Flickr archive. For instance, Tamara noted how she first looked up her own name out of curiosity. “And then I ended up on this Palestine Festival of Literature page that I’ve photographed before. But then I saw this that said ‘Shops forced to close becoming overgrown’… it’s in Hebron, the shops in the old city are mostly closed in that area.” This photograph also had aesthetic links to Roï’s project which includes similar portraits of abandoned buildings covered in overgrowth. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">As a professional photographer, it was interesting to see how Tamara’s photos circulated and were uploaded to Flickr and how their arrangements in different albums and groups connected them to other photographs. For instance, headshots she tookof rapper Narcy (formerly The Narcysist) located in an album called </span><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cardinalspin/albums/72157626220619752/"><span style="font-weight: 400">The Narcycist</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> uploaded by Cardinal Spin, a communications agency. Elsewhere, her portraits from the series </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Picture an Arab Man</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400"> are featured in various albums and uploaded by different users. </span></p> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="media-image-gallery"> <div class="grid-container fluid-"> <div class="grid-x align-center grid-padding-x"> <div class="cell large-10"> <div class="item"> <div class="media media-relative ratio-16-9"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="768" src="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/Image-7-Large.jpeg?w=1024" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="" srcset="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/Image-7-Large.jpeg 1280w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/Image-7-Large.jpeg?resize=300,225 300w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/Image-7-Large.jpeg?resize=768,576 768w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/Image-7-Large.jpeg?resize=1024,768 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> </div> <span class="light-caption ">“PalFest 2010 Day 5: al Khalil / Hebron” by PalFest; licenced CC BY 2.0</span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text color-transparent-bg"> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-8"> <h3>Researcher: Roï Saade<br /> Project: A Danse of Despair</h3> <p><i><span style="font-weight: 400">This project is a close examination of the artist’s personal photo archive of pictures taken in the aftermath of the October 17 Revolution in Lebanon in 2019. Largely depicting quiet landscapes and abandoned urban infrastructure, the archival exhibition invites a reflection on both the human and environmental impacts of war.</span></i></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">Similar to Tamara, Roï was also able to locate himself within the archive. Through searching for pictures from the revolution and protests in Lebanon, he located </span><a href="https://flic.kr/p/2iGEcVu"><span style="font-weight: 400">an image he took</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> of a pair walking, their heads and backs covered by a Lebanese flag that appears to be wet. He explained that this image was “used for donations and fundraising. This [upload] is by the printer [Gulf Photo Plus]. This photo, I think, raised like $100,000 of donations back then… In my project… there is a photo of this but in decay, the flag became orange, because it’s a printed poster on the street.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">During a previous project meeting, Roï had presented an image of this same picture printed onto a poster plastered outside. The poster, over time, had become faded and yellowed from exposure to the elements. This recovery of the image through Flickr highlights how image deposits to the platform can act as a kind of time capsule, not only in terms of the snapshot of the contents of the photo that are situated in a particular time and place, but also that Flickr can be a place for media which evolves as a result of being there. In this instance, we found a source image after having already seen the future of this image through the way it had been repurposed and reproduced as a public fundraiser tool. This generated another idea for a research method that uses the Flickr archive – to try and track the movement and evolution of a particular image, symbol, place, etc., over time to try to understand how these changes reflect possible social developments (e.g. the shops in Hebron that were forced to close). </span></p> <h2><span style="font-weight: 400">Lessons learned </span></h2> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">With the richness of features offered on the Flickr platform, there was a learning curve when it came to getting the researchers familiar with the site and its features. This is something to note for future studies to dedicate enough time to learn the range of functions. It was also the first time that the researchers had ever used Flickr, or the first time in a long time. The reorientation was therefore something important to highlight as well as the important place Flickr occupied in the movement to the social media aspect of the Internet that arose in the era of the transition to Web 2.0. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">Another challenge that was noted was the Anglocentrism of much of the topics that were searched during the workshop. Diego mentioned being “interested in typing other words in English since most of what I was typing was in Spanish. That’s maybe why I didn’t get that many results.” Arseli Dokumaci responded noting that “at some point I searched in Turkish but there wasn’t much stuff coming up, which is also interesting with what Diego was saying – like how much it is an English-dominated medium.” Tamara also noted something similar regarding her searches around the Euphrates River in Iraq. Many of the photos she identified were taken by members of the US Army during the Iraq War, giving a very particular perspective and political context to the landscapes being photographed. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">Finally, the last stage in the Archivevoice methodology is to put together a public exhibition of the highlighted photos and other archival documents identified during the research. While many of the images that were selected during the workshops have some sharing permissions, others had complete copyright restrictions preventing them from appearing in other publications (such as this blog). As such, we decided to keep the public presentation of our selected images in the form of </span><a href="https://flic.kr/y/3NNkc7W"><span style="font-weight: 400">a gallery on Flickr</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> itself. This feature allows for users to collect photos taken by other users and curate them into a virtual gallery that can be viewed publicly. As long as the viewing privacy setting of the photo is not set to private, any photo uploaded to Flickr can be collected into an album, regardless of its copyright license. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">Overall, the workshop demonstrated an interest among humanities researchers and artists engaged in participatory action and community research to explore the potential uses of Archivevoice and Flickr in their respective research projects. Flickr, with its repository of billions of images, proves to be an important resource for the documentation and preservation of various histories, cultures, ecologies, etc. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400">Through Archivevoice projects, Flickr and other such image and media repositories can be activated to have these documents revisited and put into conversation with contemporary issues. It is my hope that this workshop summary provides some insight into the possibilities of the method and encourages other community researchers to put it into action. </span></p> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text color-transparent-bg"> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-8"> <p></p> <p><strong>Footnotes</strong><br /> [1] <a href="https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?rDI01h">Guidos, “At Burial Ground for Unidentified Migrants, Sisters Pray for the Dead.”</a><br /> [2] <a href="https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?39jw8W">Schyllander, “The Gendered Impact of Neoliberalism.”</a><br /> [3] <a href="https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?GMtQbK">Lyne, “Electrolux Picks Juarez for 3,000-Worker Plant; 885 Johnson Controls Workers Also Mexico-Bound.”</a><br /> [4] <a href="https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?zMkYbz">“Birds of Tommy Thompson Park.”</a></p> <p><strong>References</strong></p> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?1cDd2E">Guidos, Rhina. “At Burial Ground for Unidentified Migrants, Sisters Pray for the Dead.” <em>Global Sisters Report</em>, April 15, 2024. https://www.globalsistersreport.org/news/burial-ground-unidentified-migrants-sisters-pray-dead, https://www.globalsistersreport.org/news/burial-ground-unidentified-migrants-sisters-pray-dead.</a> </li> <li><a href="https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?1cDd2E">Lyne, Jack. “Electrolux Picks Juarez for 3,000-Worker Plant; 885 Johnson Controls Workers Also Mexico-Bound.” <em>Site Selection</em>, April 19, 2004. https://archive.siteselection.com/ssinsider/pwatch/pw040419.htm.</a> </li> <li><a href="https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?1cDd2E">Schyllander, Alice. “The Gendered Impact of Neoliberalism: Violence and Exploitation of Women Working in Maquiladoras.” <em>Senior Honors Theses and Projects</em>, January 1, 2018. https://commons.emich.edu/honors/627.</a> </li> <li><a href="https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?1cDd2E">Tommy Thompson Park: Toronto’s Urban Wilderness. “Birds of Tommy Thompson Park.” Accessed December 17, 2024. https://tommythompsonpark.ca/park-species/birds/.</a></li> </ul>  </div> </div> </div> </section><p>The post <a href="https://www.flickr.org/developing-a-new-research-method-part-3-archivevoice-in-practice/">Developing a New Research Method, Part 3: Archivevoice in Practice</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.flickr.org">Flickr Foundation</a>.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">9195</post-id> </item> <item> <title>Inheriting the Internet, Part 1: Researching Digital Preservation in an Age of Impermanence</title> <link>https://www.flickr.org/inheriting-the-internet-digital-preservation-in-an-age-of-impermanence/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[tori]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Thu, 06 Mar 2025 09:59:00 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Amy Sun & Daniel Kim]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Research]]></category> <category><![CDATA[amy sun]]></category> <category><![CDATA[daniel kim]]></category> <category><![CDATA[data lifeboat]]></category> <category><![CDATA[digital legacy]]></category> <category><![CDATA[research]]></category> <category><![CDATA[student projects]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.flickr.org/?p=9142</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>The post <a href="https://www.flickr.org/inheriting-the-internet-digital-preservation-in-an-age-of-impermanence/">Inheriting the Internet, Part 1: Researching Digital Preservation in an Age of Impermanence</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.flickr.org">Flickr Foundation</a>.</p> ]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<section class="header "> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x"> <div class="cell "> <div class="content"> <p><a href="https://ischool.uw.edu/programs/informatics">University of Washington Informatics</a> students, Amy and Daniel, introduce their capstone research into digital legacy practices among young adults</p> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="fluid hero hero-full"> <div class="item"> <div class="media media-bg"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="641" src="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/IMG_0914-211.jpg?w=1024" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="" srcset="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/IMG_0914-211.jpg 2000w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/IMG_0914-211.jpg?resize=300,188 300w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/IMG_0914-211.jpg?resize=768,481 768w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/IMG_0914-211.jpg?resize=1024,641 1024w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/IMG_0914-211.jpg?resize=1536,962 1536w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> </div> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x space-between"> <div class="cell small-10 medium-8 large-6"> <div class="content"> <div></div> <div></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text color-transparent-bg"> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-8"> <p>Hi there! We are Amy Sun and Daniel Kim, two seniors at the <a href="https://ischool.uw.edu/programs/informatics">University of Washington Informatics</a> program with a focus on UX/UI design. We’re extremely honored to work with the Flickr Foundation, who have generously sponsored our capstone project exploring digital archiving in the context of digital preservation and legacy planning, alongside our professor<a href="https://www.temiodumosu.com/"> Dr. Temi Odumosu</a> who has served as our mentor throughout this project. With our backgrounds in culturally sensitive UX design and accessible design, we are incredibly excited to begin this project with the Flickr Foundation.</p> <p>For the past two months we have stepped into the world of memory work as welcomed strangers, taking the time to learn about the importance of digital archiving in order to preserve our shared cultural heritage. Being among some of the most forward and preparatory thinkers addressing digital preservation has felt like walking through déjà vu, where we are designing and thinking about future solutions that were anticipated in the past: our present moment.</p> <h3>Our research questions</h3> <p>Our first step of research was to explore the vast literature surrounding archival work where we became particularly interested in digital death and destruction. We were especially struck by the following concepts, which led us to some key questions::</p> <p><a href="https://www.meganlyip.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/2019-11-28-Your-Digital-Estate-Guide.pdf">Digital estate planning</a>: We found an online guide on how people can dedicate a “will” or “legacy” to loved ones to have access to their digital accounts.</p> <ul> <li><em><em>How can people be given the tools to think through posthumous digital assets?</em></em></li> </ul> <p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/apr/29/facebook-dead-users-2100-oxford">The scale of digital mortality</a>: It is estimated that by 2070, those who are dead will outnumber the living on Facebook… we might assume a similar scale for Flickr. Physical death doesn’t necessarily account for a person’s digital footprint.</p> <ul> <li><em>How can we address the fact that digital content will outlive its creator?</em></li> <li><em>How long should these memories last?</em></li> <li><em><em>Who should have the right to decide what happens to this content?</em></em></li> </ul> <p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/apr/29/facebook-dead-users-2100-oxford">Deathlogging</a>: The digital persistence of deceased individuals on the internet creates new mourning rituals between the living and the dead.</p> <ul> <li><em>What is the experience of users interacting with deceased accounts?</em></li> <li><em>How can this experience provide insights into how those in the future might interact with content (or <a href="https://www.flickr.org/programs/content-mobility/data-lifeboat/">Data Lifeboats</a>) created by deceased creators? </em></li> </ul> <p><strong>Archival Refusal</strong>: In the <a href="https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/archivaria/2021-n92-archivaria06637/1084741ar.pdf">Pittsburgh Queer History Project</a> a marginalized community’s artifacts and information were intentionally protected and excluded from museums and curators, serving as a critique of archival research’s encroachment on the personal. This reading revealed that unchecked preservation risks distorting precious cultural memory, while intentional removal risks erasing vital histories.</p> <ul> <li><em>What happens if digital content is taken out of context or misrepresents cultural histories, and archival or set expiration dates on archives for this reason?</em></li> <li><em>What contradictions exist between an archive’s promise to empower through acquisition and its compulsion to expand by any means necessary?</em></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="media-image-gallery"> <div class="grid-container fluid-"> <div class="grid-x align-center grid-padding-x"> <div class="cell large-10"> <div class="item"> <div class="media media-relative ratio-16-9"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="683" src="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/56360564_161935308274092_r1.jpeg?w=1024" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="" srcset="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/56360564_161935308274092_r1.jpeg 1200w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/56360564_161935308274092_r1.jpeg?resize=300,200 300w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/56360564_161935308274092_r1.jpeg?resize=768,512 768w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/56360564_161935308274092_r1.jpeg?resize=1024,683 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> </div> <span class="light-caption "><a href="https://qburgh.com/digitizing-pittsburghs-queer-history-a-labor-of-love-and-preservation/" class="caption-link" target="_blank">The Pittsburgh Queer History Project <span class="inline ffa fa-external-link-alt"></span></a></span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text color-transparent-bg"> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-8"> <p>Alongside these readings, we found ourselves in a unique design space: <strong>considering digital power and autonomy today</strong>.</p> <p>While talking with Dr. Odumosu, we discussed why this is an urgent issue. She highlighted the mass deletion of information in the U.S. federal government through data purging. The “death” of data at the hands of our government exposes the <em><strong>false promise of online permanence</strong></em>.</p> <p>This is not limited to those in power in the U.S. federal government. Corporations closely tied to the administration—such as Meta (founded by Mark Zuckerberg) and Amazon (founded by Jeff Bezos)—hold immense power over our individual and collective digital assets. <em>If these corporations were to adopt a similar shoot-from-the-hip approach to digital assets, what steps can we take to ensure digital legacy planning remains in our hands? </em></p> <p>If the livelihood of data can be deleted in a split second by our government, what decisions about longevity and time-constraints on our digital assets should be given to the user?</p> <p>What promise of preservation could something like Data Lifeboat reasonably offer to the user?</p> <p>We question the systems of power safeguarding, saving and holding crucial information. It gives us the language to say,</p> <blockquote> <h2>“We are saving and archiving because there are power structures that actually control what we thought we had control over.”</h2> </blockquote> <p>In the coming weeks, we will be exploring these themes through interviews and an educational workshop aimed at increasing literacy surrounding digital preservation for young adults.</p> <p>Thank you to Tori, George, and Dr. Odumosu for their ongoing mentorship throughout this project and we will keep you posted on our research in our Part 2.</p> </div> </div> </div> </section><p>The post <a href="https://www.flickr.org/inheriting-the-internet-digital-preservation-in-an-age-of-impermanence/">Inheriting the Internet, Part 1: Researching Digital Preservation in an Age of Impermanence</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.flickr.org">Flickr Foundation</a>.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">9142</post-id> <media:thumbnail url="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/IMG_0914-2.jpg" /> <media:content url="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/03/IMG_0914-2.jpg" medium="image"> <media:title type="html">Amy and Daniel</media:title> </media:content> </item> <item> <title>A Prehistory of the Digital Daybook</title> <link>https://www.flickr.org/a-prehistory-of-the-digital-daybook/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[tori]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Mon, 17 Feb 2025 15:19:08 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Creative Archives]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Digital Daybook]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Fattori McKenna]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Research]]></category> <category><![CDATA[archives]]></category> <category><![CDATA[digital daybook]]></category> <category><![CDATA[research]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.flickr.org/?p=8865</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>The post <a href="https://www.flickr.org/a-prehistory-of-the-digital-daybook/">A Prehistory of the Digital Daybook</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.flickr.org">Flickr Foundation</a>.</p> ]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<section class="header "> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x"> <div class="cell "> <div class="content htag-only"> <span class="light-caption ">by Fattori McKenna</span><h2>A Prehistory of the Digital Daybook</h2> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="media-image-gallery"> <div class="grid-container fluid-"> <div class="grid-x align-center grid-padding-x"> <div class="cell large-10"> <div class="item"> <div class="media media-relative ratio-16-9"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="769" src="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/02/53116573749_04b78b0d62_o-e1738768006877.jpg?w=1024" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="" srcset="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/02/53116573749_04b78b0d62_o-e1738768006877.jpg 1136w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/02/53116573749_04b78b0d62_o-e1738768006877.jpg?resize=300,225 300w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/02/53116573749_04b78b0d62_o-e1738768006877.jpg?resize=768,577 768w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/02/53116573749_04b78b0d62_o-e1738768006877.jpg?resize=1024,769 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> </div> <span class="light-caption "><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/49487266@N07/53116573749/" class="caption-link" target="_blank">Convair employee measuring logbook by SDASM <span class="inline ffa fa-external-link-alt"></span></a></span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text color-transparent-bg"> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-8"> <p>At the Flickr Foundation, you may have heard we’re developing a <a href="https://www.flickr.org/announcing-digital-daybook/">Digital Daybook</a>—just one tangible codification of our <a href="https://www.flickr.org/about-us/the-100-year-plan/">100-year plan</a>. Answering the question<em>, How might we keep Flickr alive for the next century?,</em> is no easy feat, so we figured we might need some tools along the way to help us out.</p> <p>Through our 100-year plan workshops, one theme emerged again and again: it’s not just technical infrastructure that sustains an organisation, but social infrastructure, too. Shared rituals—the everyday and periodic habits, customs, and practices of a group—are just as critical to long-term preservation as robust servers and secure storage. Rituals create a sense of continuity and belonging, allowing knowledge, values, and ways of working to be carried forward even as individuals move on.</p> <p> </p> <h3>Rituals that Sustain</h3> <p>Take, for example, the <a href="https://royalsociety.org/">Royal Society</a>, founded in 1660. Today, it still upholds its core principles through rituals: formal presentations, roll calls, elections, and the meticulous recording of experiments and discussions in its journal, <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/journal/rstl"><em>Philosophical Transactions</em></a>. While the people, research priorities, and conditions for entry have changed, these rituals reinforce continuity and collective memory, ensuring that the institution’s intellectual traditions endure.</p> <p>On the more speculative side, consider the Atomic Priesthood, a speculative proposal by a linguist (Thomas Sebeok), physicist (Alvin Weinberg) and science fiction writer (Arsen Darney) in the 1980s. They imagined a ritualistic system of knowledge transmission designed to warn future civilizations about nuclear waste disposal sites—long after current languages and cultural systems might have vanished. The idea was to establish a <a href="http://www.theatomicpriesthoodproject.org/">priesthood-like order</a> that would embed knowledge of radioactive dangers into myths, superstitions, and religious customs, ensuring the information’s survival for millennia. The half-life of nuclear waste far exceeds a human lifespan, but rituals can endure — with the founders citing the Catholic Church’s survival over two millennia as proof of concept.</p> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="media-image-gallery"> <div class="grid-container fluid-"> <div class="grid-x align-center grid-padding-x"> <div class="cell large-10"> <div class="item"> <div class="media media-relative ratio-16-9"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="699" src="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/02/39971694173_73b61c9f1e_k1-e1738768106912.jpg?w=1024" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="" srcset="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/02/39971694173_73b61c9f1e_k1-e1738768106912.jpg 1920w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/02/39971694173_73b61c9f1e_k1-e1738768106912.jpg?resize=300,205 300w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/02/39971694173_73b61c9f1e_k1-e1738768106912.jpg?resize=768,524 768w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/02/39971694173_73b61c9f1e_k1-e1738768106912.jpg?resize=1024,699 1024w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/02/39971694173_73b61c9f1e_k1-e1738768106912.jpg?resize=1536,1048 1536w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> </div> <span class="light-caption "><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/47290943@N03/39971694173/" class="caption-link" target="_blank">Masons galore and not a brickie in sight! by National Library of Ireland <span class="inline ffa fa-external-link-alt"></span></a></span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text color-transparent-bg"> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-8"> <h3>The kernel of history in the everyday</h3> <p>Beyond these grand and speculative examples of organisational sustenance, much of what we understand about historical institutions, corporations, and communities comes from the small, seemingly mundane records they leave behind. The minutiae of daily life—ledgers, journals, memos, meeting minutes, logbooks, annotations, schedules, receipts, rosters—constitute a form of ritual in themselves. These documents often appear purely practical in their own time, yet they later serve as a rich resource for historians.</p> <p>Take, for example, a <a href="https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A1649750&dswid=-5081">19th-century household daybook</a> discovered in Jönköping, Sweden. At first glance, it might seem like a simple log of purchases—how much sugar was bought, how much the gardener was paid. But when read with an attunement to the social, it reveals something more: the purchase of a bicycle for an 11-year-old girl, a quiet but profound marker of shifting ideas around childhood and womanhood in the fin-de-siècle.</p> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="media-image-gallery"> <div class="grid-container fluid-"> <div class="grid-x align-center grid-padding-x"> <div class="cell large-10"> <div class="item"> <div class="media media-relative ratio-16-9"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="777" src="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/02/30855676065_7f81b9bd43_k1.jpg?w=1024" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="" srcset="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/02/30855676065_7f81b9bd43_k1.jpg 1920w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/02/30855676065_7f81b9bd43_k1.jpg?resize=300,228 300w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/02/30855676065_7f81b9bd43_k1.jpg?resize=768,582 768w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/02/30855676065_7f81b9bd43_k1.jpg?resize=1024,777 1024w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/02/30855676065_7f81b9bd43_k1.jpg?resize=1536,1165 1536w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> </div> <span class="light-caption "><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/swedish_heritage_board/30855676065/in/album-72157671599852420" class="caption-link" target="_blank">Girl sitting by a rune stone fragment in Lissma, Huddinge, Södermanland, Swedish National Heritage Board <span class="inline ffa fa-external-link-alt"></span></a></span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text color-transparent-bg"> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-8"> <h3>Building the Foundation’s first ritual </h3> <p>As Flickr Foundation founder, George Oates, noted back in <a href="https://nieuweinstituut.nl/en/projects/archiefinterpretaties/need-human-intervention-annet-dekker-gesprek-met-george-oates">2014</a>, there’s an opportunity to view corporate corporate digital archives not as static documents, but “through a feeling of human activity and depth”—records imbued with the lived experience of the people who create them and the values of their time. Given our work at the Foundation, which so often deals with the care and consequences of archival materials, it only makes sense that we consider our own.</p> <p>But the Digital Daybook isn’t just a gift to posterity. It’s also a tool for reflection in the present—a moment in our daily work routines to bring awareness to our own practices, values, and rhythms as we shape <a href="http://Flickr.org">Flickr.org</a>’s future.</p> <p>In this series of blog posts, we’ll be crafting a sort of ‘prehistory’ to our own Digital Daybook, tracing its conceptual lineage and exploring its potential significance. First, we’ll ask: Where do daybooks appear? How have they functioned across history? Venturing into more unexpected corners, we’ll also survey adjacent ephemera that might be considered the spiritual ‘cousins’ of daybooks. In the subsequent post, we’ll examine what these records can reveal to us—about institutions, communities, and memory. Finally, we’ll turn to the role of the daybook in the digital era and what it means to document daily organisational life in an age of shifting technologies.</p> </div> </div> </div> </section><p>The post <a href="https://www.flickr.org/a-prehistory-of-the-digital-daybook/">A Prehistory of the Digital Daybook</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.flickr.org">Flickr Foundation</a>.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">8865</post-id> <media:thumbnail url="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/02/53116573749_04b78b0d62_o-e1738768006877.jpg" /> <media:content url="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/02/53116573749_04b78b0d62_o-e1738768006877.jpg" medium="image"> <media:title type="html">53116573749_04b78b0d62_o</media:title> </media:content> </item> <item> <title>Announcing Digital Daybook</title> <link>https://www.flickr.org/announcing-digital-daybook/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[George Oates]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Mon, 10 Feb 2025 11:08:47 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[About the .org]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Creative Archives]]></category> <category><![CDATA[George Oates]]></category> <category><![CDATA[100 year plan]]></category> <category><![CDATA[announcement]]></category> <category><![CDATA[archiving]]></category> <category><![CDATA[new project]]></category> <category><![CDATA[vision]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.flickr.org/?p=8902</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>The post <a href="https://www.flickr.org/announcing-digital-daybook/">Announcing Digital Daybook</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.flickr.org">Flickr Foundation</a>.</p> ]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<section class="header "> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-10"> <div class="content"> <h2>Announcing Digital Daybook</h2><p>As we celebrate the 21st birthday of Flickr.com today, it’s a good day to share an introduction to our newest major project at the Flickr Foundation: <a href="https://www.flickr.org/programs/creative-archives/digital-daybook/"><strong><em>Digital Daybook</em></strong></a>.</p> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text color-transparent-bg"> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-8"> <p>When we were strategising in 2021 about what we are for, we came up with a purpose to keep Flickr pictures visible for 100 years. As we continue developing our shorter-term strategies to meet this – like <a href="https://www.flickr.org/programs/content-mobility/data-lifeboat/">Data Lifeboat</a> – we are developing internal practices dedicated to making sure <em>we</em> are also visible in 100 years.</p> <p> </p> <p>As part of our <a href="https://www.flickr.org/programs/creative-archives/">Creative Archives</a> program, we are initiating Digital Daybook in tribute to prior art, where a clerk would have been employed at an organization to record daily events or important moments in the life of the organization. This is regular, indefatigable, and careful work determined to keep an image of the organization visible, and delightfully, these daybooks from previous centuries can still be read and enjoyed today. Tori will be reporting on her research on daybooks in upcoming posts – stay tuned for that – she has found some wonderful and odd examples to share.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Why “Digital Daybook”?</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>One of my biggest professional regrets is that I didn’t keep a good record of my design work in the early days of the Flickr.com UI. (I was lead designer there from the outset for a few years.) The best I have now are a few screenshots of early UIs captured by other people.</p> <p> </p> <p>There is certainly a lot of lore around Flickr and the workplace where we made it (and still make it). Kittens, babies, sunsets, flowers, finger darts, deploys late on a Friday… even though everyone who uses Flickr has a slightly different image of it in their heads, the team culture has stood the test of time quite well, and it’s stories and artefacts that do it. We even wonder if we should archive the <a href="https://flickr.com/photos/tags/flickrhq">flickrhq</a> tag, or conduct oral histories with the Flickr team to record the story of it all.</p> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="media-image-gallery"> <div class="grid-container fluid-"> <div class="grid-x align-center grid-padding-x"> <div class="cell large-10"> <div class="item"> <div class="media media-relative ratio-4-3"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="768" src="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/02/317375130_cb080a7df9_h.jpg?w=1024" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="" srcset="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/02/317375130_cb080a7df9_h.jpg 1600w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/02/317375130_cb080a7df9_h.jpg?resize=300,225 300w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/02/317375130_cb080a7df9_h.jpg?resize=768,576 768w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/02/317375130_cb080a7df9_h.jpg?resize=1024,768 1024w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/02/317375130_cb080a7df9_h.jpg?resize=1536,1152 1536w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> </div> <span class="light-caption ">Untitledificiation <br><a href="https://flickr.com/photos/straup/317375130" class="caption-link">by Aaron Straup Cope</a></span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text color-transparent-bg"> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-8"> <p>But, in terms of our actual work, or its digital record, really the only thing that remains is the huge codebase, and I think that’s erroneously imagined as an archival record these days, by some, of the group and its work. I was lucky enough to be commissioned for the <a href="https://nieuweinstituut.nl/en/projects/archiefinterpretaties/4-george-oates">New Archive Interpretations Het Nieuwe Instituut</a> back in 2015 to think about the digital archive of the Rotterdam architects, <a href="https://www.mvrdv.com/">MVRDV</a>, and as I explored their physical archive of models, boxes, drawings, and images, and surveyed the staff on their own memories and highlights of the firm, the “digital archive” of a hard drive in a drawer fell massively short of the narratives and recollections of the people there.</p> <p> </p> <p>Today, companies don’t have a cupboard or a book that holds all our work. If you think about it, and you work on a computer in your job, you probably use several digital services in the course of your work. Here’s a very quick list of the things most of us in this group use: the Google, Slack, web browsers, Github, code editors, wordpress, password managers, and any number of online software services, like Flickr, to do our everyday work. We don’t (yet) have a way of drawing all this work back into something like a daybook, something that represents what we do every day, week, month, quarter, year. We all have phones and laptops and backup drives and all that, but the work is diffuse and decaying.</p> <p> </p> <p>It’s lucky that we’re currently a group which enjoys writing and reflecting. We try to blog a lot about where we’re at, and produce reports and reflections on how things are going. It’s been gratifying to hear from people that they’ve enjoyed reading that, so we’ll keep doing it. It reminds me a bit of that piece <a href="https://jamesbridle.com/">James Bridle</a> made, where he printed out all the edits to the Wikipedia entry in <em><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iraq_War:_A_Historiography_of_Wikipedia_Changelogs">The Iraq War: A Historiography of Wikipedia Changelogs</a></em>.</p> <p> </p> <p>So, that’s the problem we’re working on: How do we gather our work into a representative sample or log that future team members will be able to read later? How should we describe it? What structures does it need? What privacies should we build in?</p> </div> </div> </div> </section><p>The post <a href="https://www.flickr.org/announcing-digital-daybook/">Announcing Digital Daybook</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.flickr.org">Flickr Foundation</a>.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">8902</post-id> </item> <item> <title>Happy 17th Birthday, Flickr Commons!</title> <link>https://www.flickr.org/happy-17th-birthday-flickr-commons/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[George Oates]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Thu, 16 Jan 2025 12:00:00 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[About the .org]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Flickr Commons]]></category> <category><![CDATA[George Oates]]></category> <category><![CDATA[birthday]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.flickr.org/?p=8792</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>The post <a href="https://www.flickr.org/happy-17th-birthday-flickr-commons/">Happy 17th Birthday, Flickr Commons!</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.flickr.org">Flickr Foundation</a>.</p> ]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<section class="header "> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-8"> <div class="content"> <span class="light-caption ">By George Oates</span><h2>Happy 17th Birthday, Flickr Commons!</h2><p></p> <p>We launched Flickr Commons in 2008 with the Library of Congress, announced in my blog post entitled <a href="https://blog.flickr.net/en/2008/01/16/many-hands-make-light-work/"><em>Many hands make light work</em></a>. It was thrilling to watch the Flickr community step up and add about 10,000 tags <em>overnight</em> to those first two collections from the library.</p> <p> </p> <p>We had set up the program with three main goals: increase access to historical photography collections, gather new information about them, and, ideally, feed that new information back into the contributing members’ catalogues.</p> <p> </p> <p>There are 593,000 tags describing the Flickr Commons collection today, and the 1,853,850 photos published in it have enjoyed <strong>4.51 billion views</strong>. I think it’s fair to say the program is successful.</p> <p><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryofnsw/3917969329/"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/2667/3917969329_98c1bb5c9c.jpg" alt="Birthday party c. 1930s / Sam Hood" width="500" height="376" /></a></p> <p> </p> <p>It’s clear the program suffered a bit in the 2010s, as you can see from the <a href="https://commons.flickr.org/members/">membership graph</a> at the top of the <a href="http://commons.flickr.org/members">Members’ page on our Commons Explorer</a>. The good news is the program is now under our roof, steered ably by our Community Lead, Jessamyn West. In just the last few months, we’ve managed to open the doors to new members for the first time in years. We are <em>thrilled</em> that after the decline in membership that started in 2014, we’re now on the up again. (You can <a href="https://blog.flickr.net/category/flickr-commons/">meet the new members on the Flickr.com blog</a>. That’s where we’ve been letting people know.)</p> <p> </p> <p>The rate of monthly uploads is on the up too. We’re seeing more members return to the fold <a href="https://commons.flickr.org/recent/">sharing new pictures</a>, including some we had grouped as “sleepy”. And last year, 2024, we had more photos uploaded than in any of the previous five years. YES! WOO!</p> <p> </p> <h3><strong>Future contextual gold?</strong></h3> <h3> </h3> <p>Last Friday we submitted a next grant proposal to continue our work on the Data Lifeboat initiative, where it’s possible to draw out a curated/selected “sliver” of Flickr pictures for archiving elsewhere, and I mention that here because in our <a href="https://www.flickr.org/category/projects/data-lifeboat/">Data Lifeboat</a> work, we’ve developed the idea that there’s a useful distinction between technical metadata (what the camera records at the moment of creation) and social metadata (all the information, tags, comments, etc that are created inside Flickr.com). We believe that this social metadata records and informs the social context surrounding a photograph, and that this is <em>future contextual gold</em>. ✨</p> <p> </p> <h3><strong>The continuing need for Flickr Commons</strong></h3> <h3> </h3> <p>The world’s libraries, archives, and museums have made remarkable progress with digital sharing through initiatives like the open culture movement and licensing innovations like Creative Commons, but many smaller museums and archives still face challenges with digitization due to limited time and resources.</p> <p> </p> <p>This is where Flickr Commons really shines—it’s an ideal platform for these organizations, offering free, user-friendly tools and access to a vibrant global community. By joining Flickr Commons, smaller institutions can dramatically increase access to their collections and fulfill their mission of sharing cultural heritage, without the usual technical and resource barriers. Flickr’s combination of simple tools and built-in audience makes it a powerful solution for institutions looking to expand their digital presence and find new fans.</p> <p> </p> <p>Are you in an organisation with a photographic collection, and curious about joining in? <br /> Please <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSda9oTtajh9Trhs7reN4ndmEmw3Xv0X9IqmyG2O4XkJSEFGcQ/viewform"><strong>register your interest in joining the Flickr Commons today</strong></a>!</p> <p> </p> <h3><strong>2025 plans</strong></h3> <p>Our goals for Flickr Commons this year are straightforward:</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Welcome more new members, from new places.</strong> We have about 120 international organizations in the program now, and most of them are from the US/Canada and Europe. We’ll be working towards our first Indian member coming online soon, and having early conversations with an African non-profit advocating for digitization of African public domain materials.</p> <p><strong>New tools and toys! </strong>Now that we have the new Commons Explorer for you, we want to build it out more. We’re crafting an administrative dashboard to welcome and manage our members, and to help keep an eye on the health of the program. We also want to build even more ways to show off the collection, so keep an eye out for that!</p> <p><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/54403180@N04/7008218345/"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/7073/7008218345_099df9ce69.jpg" alt="Sinton party" width="500" height="385" /></a></p> <p> </p> <h3><strong>Birthday cheers for our friends</strong></h3> <p>Thanks to Flickr.com for your continued interest in supporting us to grow Flickr Commons again, in particular to Ruppel and Josie. We are working with the .com team to develop some new Commons-specific API methods which will allow us to sharpen our tools for managing members. </p> <p>Congratulations to the <a href="https://publicdomainreview.org/blog/2025/01/announcing-the-public-domain-image-archive/">Public Domain Review</a> for announcing their new sister-project, the <a href="https://publicdomainreview.org/blog/2025/01/announcing-the-public-domain-image-archive/">Public Domain Image Archive</a>, a curated “collection of more than 10,000 out-of-copyright historical images” (including some from Flickr Commons) which have been gathered and used in the journal over the years. Interesting that this comes at the same time as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/shutterstock-merge-with-getty-images-deal-valued-37-billion-2025-01-07/">Getty Images merges with Shutterstock</a>!</p> <p></p> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text"><div class="grid-container"><div class="grid-x align-center"><div class="cell medium-10"> <p></p> </div></div></div></section><p>The post <a href="https://www.flickr.org/happy-17th-birthday-flickr-commons/">Happy 17th Birthday, Flickr Commons!</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.flickr.org">Flickr Foundation</a>.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">8792</post-id> </item> <item> <title>Welcome, Dan Catt</title> <link>https://www.flickr.org/welcome-dan-catt/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Reverend Dan Catt]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Wed, 15 Jan 2025 15:44:33 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[About the .org]]></category> <category><![CDATA[About us]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Reverend Dan Catt]]></category> <category><![CDATA[development]]></category> <category><![CDATA[team]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.flickr.org/?p=8830</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>The post <a href="https://www.flickr.org/welcome-dan-catt/">Welcome, Dan Catt</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.flickr.org">Flickr Foundation</a>.</p> ]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<section class="header "> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x"> <div class="cell "> <div class="content htag-only"> <h2>Welcome, Dan Catt!</h2> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="media-image-gallery"> <div class="grid-container fluid-"> <div class="grid-x align-center grid-padding-x"> <div class="cell large-10"> <div class="item"> <div class="media media-relative ratio-16-9"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/01/arm-tattoo-1920.jpg?w=1024" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="An arm tattooed with paper sizes" srcset="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/01/arm-tattoo-1920.jpg 1920w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/01/arm-tattoo-1920.jpg?resize=300,169 300w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/01/arm-tattoo-1920.jpg?resize=768,432 768w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/01/arm-tattoo-1920.jpg?resize=1024,576 1024w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/01/arm-tattoo-1920.jpg?resize=1536,864 1536w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> </div> <span class="light-caption ">Dan’s paper based arm tattoo</span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text color-transparent-bg"> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-8"> <p>Well hi! I’ve joined the Flickr Foundation team, and here I am writing my introduction blog post because George is making me.</p> <p>I’m Dan Catt, and I’d much rather be taking photos, editing videos, getting absolutely covered in ink, making robots draw with fountain pens, and most importantly, being elbow-deep in writing code than writing about myself (more on that later). I don’t drink tea or coffee, I’m trying to give up caffeine, and I’ve already ditched sugar. It’s excellent, and I really recommend it. And yes, I like cats, but we currently don’t have one; we’re waiting for all three kids to leave home before we replace them with a cat, one down, two to go. No dogs, sorry.</p> <p>It’s always been about the story, the beginning, the middle and the end. This particular story started around 20 years ago when I joined the Flickr team, small, scrappy, Web 2.0, “The Open Web” and all that. An exciting time in social media, sharing photos and tiny, short, badly compressed videos. Back then, George wasn’t asking me to write blog posts. Instead, we worked together on a range of Flickr things, including one of my favourites, the Places project. People, places, photos, maps, tags, pulling them all together, helping to wrap some kind of context around the photos, in locations, in time, teasing out the threads and stories that linked them.</p> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="media-image-gallery"> <div class="grid-container fluid-"> <div class="grid-x align-center grid-padding-x"> <div class="cell large-10"> <div class="item"> <div class="media media-relative ratio-16-9"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/01/vestaboard-1920.jpg?w=1024" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="A Vestaboard with text" srcset="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/01/vestaboard-1920.jpg 1920w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/01/vestaboard-1920.jpg?resize=300,169 300w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/01/vestaboard-1920.jpg?resize=768,432 768w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/01/vestaboard-1920.jpg?resize=1024,576 1024w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/01/vestaboard-1920.jpg?resize=1536,864 1536w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> </div> <span class="light-caption ">The AI, asking Dan questions via a Vestaboard</span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text color-transparent-bg"> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-8"> <p>Between Flickr dot com then and Flickr dot org now, I’ve been working as an artist in my studio in Shrewsbury, UK. This is where I’ve been developing my arts-based research into AI’s role in documenting and archiving a living art practice. This includes a form of digital journaling backed by an AI (called Kitty), which also has access to my encoded handwriting, fountain pens, paper journal, and various bits of hardware around the studio. In short, while I love documenting processes, I’m not very keen on all the writing parts, thus the desire to get computers armed with fountain pens to do it for me.</p> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="media-image-gallery"> <div class="grid-container fluid-"> <div class="grid-x align-center grid-padding-x"> <div class="cell large-10"> <div class="item"> <div class="media media-relative ratio-16-9"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/01/robot-writing.jpg?w=1024" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="Fountain pen in a drawing machine" srcset="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/01/robot-writing.jpg 1920w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/01/robot-writing.jpg?resize=300,169 300w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/01/robot-writing.jpg?resize=768,432 768w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/01/robot-writing.jpg?resize=1024,576 1024w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/01/robot-writing.jpg?resize=1536,864 1536w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> </div> <span class="light-caption ">Fountain pen mounted in a drawing machine</span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text color-transparent-bg"> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-8"> <p> Which brings us to the middle. </p> <p> The Flickr Foundation’s purpose is to develop an accessible social and technical infrastructure to protect the amazing archive that’s building up on Flickr and ensure that it is sustained far into the future for the generation and beyond. How do we preserve photographic collections for the <a href="https://www.flickr.org/report-archiving-the-living-environment/">next 100 years</a>? </p> <p> How do we preserve and archive the progress, ideas, and strategies we decided on (and those we rejected, and why) along the way? How does any organisation? </p> <p> I’m very excited to join the team (as co-technical lead, along with the amazing <a href="https://www.flickr.org/welcome-alex/">Alex</a>) to explore these questions (yay, future stuff) and continue to develop the awesome work already in progress (yay, current stuff). I couldn’t be happier! Well, I mean, I could also have a cat and less caffeine withdrawal headache, but I’ll take working with a fantastic team, even if one of them does make me write blog posts!</p> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="media-image-gallery"> <div class="grid-container fluid-"> <div class="grid-x align-center grid-padding-x"> <div class="cell large-10"> <div class="item"> <div class="media media-relative ratio-16-9"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="575" src="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/01/dancatt-1920.jpg?w=1024" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="Photo of Daniel Catt" srcset="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/01/dancatt-1920.jpg 1920w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/01/dancatt-1920.jpg?resize=300,169 300w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/01/dancatt-1920.jpg?resize=768,432 768w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/01/dancatt-1920.jpg?resize=1024,575 1024w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/01/dancatt-1920.jpg?resize=1536,863 1536w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> </div> <span class="light-caption ">Dan Catt, intrepid coder</span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text color-transparent-bg"> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-8"> <p> The end. </p> <p> Well, we haven’t gotten there yet, and I’m happy to stay in the middle of this story for a while longer. Besides, with a 100-year plan, the end of this particular project will outlive me by many years. So, for the moment, I’m focusing on telling this part of the story, mainly with photos and videos and, for most of it, elbow-deep in code.</p> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text"><div class="grid-container"><div class="grid-x align-center"><div class="cell medium-10"> <p></p> </div></div></div></section><p>The post <a href="https://www.flickr.org/welcome-dan-catt/">Welcome, Dan Catt</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.flickr.org">Flickr Foundation</a>.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">8830</post-id> </item> <item> <title>From Desiderata to READMEs: The case for a C.A.R.E.-full Data Lifeboat Pt. II</title> <link>https://www.flickr.org/from-desiderata-to-readmes-the-case-for-a-c-a-r-e-full-data-lifeboat-pt-ii/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[tori]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Wed, 08 Jan 2025 16:37:08 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Content Mobility]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Data Lifeboat]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Fattori McKenna]]></category> <category><![CDATA[conscious collecting]]></category> <category><![CDATA[data lifeboat]]></category> <category><![CDATA[research]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.flickr.org/?p=8347</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>The post <a href="https://www.flickr.org/from-desiderata-to-readmes-the-case-for-a-c-a-r-e-full-data-lifeboat-pt-ii/">From Desiderata to READMEs: The case for a C.A.R.E.-full Data Lifeboat Pt. II</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.flickr.org">Flickr Foundation</a>.</p> ]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<section class="header "> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x"> <div class="cell "> <div class="content"> <span class="light-caption ">by Fattori McKenna</span><h2>From Desiderata to READMEs: The case for a C.A.R.E.-full Data Lifeboat Pt. II</h2><p><span class="notion-enable-hover">This is the second installment of a two-part blog post where we detail our thinking around ethics and the Data Lifeboat README function. In this post, we’ll discuss the outcomes of the exercise set during our Mellon co-design workshops, where we asked participants to help design the README prompts with C.A.R.E./F.A.I.R. in mind.</span></p> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="media-image-gallery"> <div class="grid-container fluid-"> <div class="grid-x align-center grid-padding-x"> <div class="cell large-10"> <div class="item"> <div class="media media-relative ratio-16-9"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="730" src="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/52615764936_552cec4c3a_k1.jpg?w=1024" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="" srcset="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/52615764936_552cec4c3a_k1.jpg 1500w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/52615764936_552cec4c3a_k1.jpg?resize=300,214 300w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/52615764936_552cec4c3a_k1.jpg?resize=768,548 768w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/52615764936_552cec4c3a_k1.jpg?resize=1024,730 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> </div> <span class="light-caption "><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryofnsw/52615764936/in/faves-201557342@N03/" class="caption-link" target="_blank">Zoology specimens, Australasian Antarctic Expedition Reports, 1911-1914 by State Library of New South Wales <span class="inline ffa fa-external-link-alt"></span></a></span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text color-transparent-bg"> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-8"> <p>As detailed in our <a href="https://www.flickr.org/from-desiderata-to-readmes-pt1/">previous blog post</a>, a README is a file type commonly used in software development and distribution to inform users about the files contained in a directory. We have adapted this container for the purposes of the Data Lifeboat to add detail and description beyond what is local to the files on the <a class="notion-link-token notion-focusable-token notion-enable-hover" href="http://flickr.com/"><span class="link-annotation-unknown-block-id--1913017021">Flickr.com</span></a> platform.</p> <p> </p> <h3>A README for Anti-Accumulation and Conscious Selection Practices</h3> <p>The inclusion of a README<span class="discussion-id-9425fc20-58f7-4ef9-a365-f1dd854678fd notion-enable-hover"> e</span>ncourages Data Lifeboat creators to slow down and practice conscious description. We are resolute that the Data Lifeboat shouldn’t become another bulk download tool—a means of large-scale data transfer from <a class="notion-link-token notion-focusable-token notion-enable-hover" href="http://flickr.com/"><span class="link-annotation-unknown-block-id--1913017021">Flickr.com</span></a> to other platforms or data banks (which would risk the images potentially becoming detached from their original content or sharing settings). Instead, we have the opportunity with the README to add detail, nuance, and context by writing about the collection as a whole or the images it contains. This is particularly important for digital cultural heritage datasets, as it is frequently an issue that images arrive in archival collections without context or may be digitised and uploaded without adequate metadata (either due to a lack of information or a lack of staff resources).</p> <p>In the current prototype, the prompts for the README are as follows:</p> <ul> <li><em>Tell the future why you are making this Data Lifeboat.</em></li> <li><em>Is there anything special you’d like future viewers to know about the contents? Anything to be careful about?</em></li> </ul> <p>These questions are a good start for getting Data Lifeboat creators to think about the intentions and future reception of the contents or collection. We may wish, however, to add further structuring to these questions to craft a sort of creation flow.</p> <p>You can read more about the current working prototype in <a href="https://www.flickr.org/creating-a-data-lifeboat-circa-2024/">Alex’s recent blog-post.</a></p> <h6>Screenshots from the working prototype:</h6> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="media-image-vertical-gallery"> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x grid-margin-x grid-margin-y align-center grid-padding-x"> <div class="cell medium-5 vertical-gallery-left"> <div class="item"> <div class="media vertical-gallery-media"> <img data-src="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/54179014523_c3df4e9de7_o.png?w=934" width="934" height="1024" class="attachment-large size-large portrait-image"> </div> </div> </div> <div class="cell medium-5 vertical-gallery-right"> <div class="item"> <div class="media vertical-gallery-media"> <img data-src="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/54179042559_950dfaa4e5_o.png?w=606" width="606" height="1024" class="attachment-large size-large portrait-image"> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text color-transparent-bg"> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-8"> <h3>Learning from pre-existing G.L.A.M. frameworks</h3> <p>During our Mellon workshops, we asked our participants to support the co-design of the README creation flow, with the aim of prompting Data Lifeboat creators to think along the lines of C.A.R.E. and F.A.I.R. principles (detailed in our <a href="https://www.flickr.org/from-desiderata-to-readmes-pt1/">Part 1 blog post</a>). Many of our workshop participants were already working within G.L.A.M. (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums) institutions and had experience grappling with legal frameworks and ethical responsibilities related to their collections.</p> <p>In preparation for the workshop, we asked representatives to bring copies of their organisations’ (Digital) Deposit Agreements. These are formal, legal documents that outline the terms and conditions under which an object or collection is temporarily placed in the custody of the museum by a depositor. The agreement governs the responsibilities, rights, and obligations of both the depositor and the museum during the period of the deposit. These agreements often include:</p> <ul> <li>Description of contents</li> <li>Purpose of deposit</li> <li>Duration of deposit</li> <li>Custodial requirements (e.g. care, storage, maintenance)</li> <li>Liability</li> <li>Rights & Restrictions (e.g. display, reproduction, transference)</li> <li>Dispute Resolution</li> </ul> <p>Digital Deposit Agreements, for the bequeathing of digital contents (such as scanned photographs, research datasets, email records, and digital artworks), may include specifications of format, versioning, metadata, digital access, technical infrastructure, and cybersecurity.</p> <p>The Data Lifeboat README flow could be modelled on some of the categories that frequently arise in Digital Deposit Agreements. However, we also felt there are unique considerations around social media collecting (the intended content of the Data Lifeboat) that we ought to design for. In particular, how might we encourage Data Lifeboat creators to consider the implications of their collection across the four <strong>user groups</strong>:</p> <ol> <li>Flickr Members</li> <li>Data Lifeboat Creators</li> <li>Safe Harbour Dock Operators</li> <li>Photo Subjects</li> </ol> <p>As well as a speculative fifth user, the Future Viewer.</p> <p></p> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="media-image-gallery"> <div class="grid-container fluid-"> <div class="grid-x align-center grid-padding-x"> <div class="cell large-10"> <div class="item"> <div class="media media-relative ratio-16-9"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="781" src="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2868984645_5e9fb10a21_o.jpg?w=1024" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="" srcset="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2868984645_5e9fb10a21_o.jpg 1200w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2868984645_5e9fb10a21_o.jpg?resize=300,229 300w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2868984645_5e9fb10a21_o.jpg?resize=768,586 768w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2868984645_5e9fb10a21_o.jpg?resize=1024,781 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> </div> <span class="light-caption "><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryofnsw/2868984645/in/album-72157607350816312" class="caption-link" target="_blank">Hamilton hand-netting for macro-plankton from Aurora / by Frank Hurley, State Library of New South Wales <span class="inline ffa fa-external-link-alt"></span></a></span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text color-transparent-bg"> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-8"> <h3>Co-Designing the README Flow</h3> <p>After exploring the current benefits and limitations of existing Digital Deposit Agreements, we invited our workshop participants to engage in a hands-on exercise designed to refine the README feature for the Data Lifeboat. The prompt was:</p> <blockquote><p><em>What prompts or questions for Data Lifeboat creators could we include in the README to help them think about C.A.R.E. or F.A.I.R. principles. Try to map each question to a letter.</em></p></blockquote> <p>To support the exercise, we provided printouts of the C.A.R.E. and F.A.I.R. principles as reference material, encouraging participants to ground their questions in these frameworks. Each participant created a list of potential prompts individually before we reconvened for a group discussion. This collaborative step surfaced shared concerns and recurring themes, which we have organised below, along with some sample questions as they could appear in the README creation flow.</p> <p></p> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="media-image-gallery"> <div class="grid-container fluid-"> <div class="grid-x align-center grid-padding-x"> <div class="cell large-10"> <div class="item"> <div class="media media-relative ratio-16-9"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="774" src="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2866522209_4e21928fae_k1.jpg?w=1024" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="" srcset="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2866522209_4e21928fae_k1.jpg 1900w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2866522209_4e21928fae_k1.jpg?resize=300,227 300w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2866522209_4e21928fae_k1.jpg?resize=768,580 768w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2866522209_4e21928fae_k1.jpg?resize=1024,774 1024w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2866522209_4e21928fae_k1.jpg?resize=1536,1161 1536w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> </div> <span class="light-caption "><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryofnsw/2866522209/in/album-72157607350816312" class="caption-link" target="_blank">Cavern carved by the sea in an ice wall near Commonwealth Bay, 1911-1914 | State Library of New South Wales <span class="inline ffa fa-external-link-alt"></span></a></span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text color-transparent-bg"> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-8"> <h3>Possible README Questions</h3> <p>We have broken down the README questions into 8 themes, these follow a logical and temporal flow, from present considerations to future horizons.</p> <ol> <li> <h4>Purpose and Compilation</h4> <p><em>Why it matters:</em> clearly defining the purpose and methods for compiling the photos in the Data Lifeboat prompts creators to reflect on their motivations and intentions.</p> <p><em>Sample questions: </em></p> <ul> <li>What is the purpose of this Data Lifeboat?</li> <li>Why are you creating it?</li> <li>Why is it important that these photos are preserved?</li> <li>What procedures were used to collect the photos in this Data Lifeboat?</li> <li>Who was involved?</li> <li>Is this Data Lifeboat a part of a larger dataset?</li> </ul> <p></li> <li> <h4><span class="notion-enable-hover">Copyright and Ownership<br /> </span></h4> <h4></h4> <p><em>Why it matters:</em> clear documentation of authorship and ownership (wherever possible) can protect creators’ rights, or attribution at a minimum.</p> <p><em>Sample questions: </em></p> <ul> <li>Do you own all the rights to the images in this Data Lifeboat?</li> <li>If you did not take these photographs, has the photographer given permission for them to be included in a Data Lifeboat?</li> <li>Do you know where the photos came from before Flickr?</li> <li>Would you be willing to relinquish your rights under any specific circumstances?</li> </ul> <p></li> <li> <h4>Privacy and Consent</h4> <p><em>Why it matters:</em> respecting privacy and obtaining consent (where possible) are critical safeguards for the dignity and rights of the represented, particularly important for sensitive content or at-risk communities.</p> <p><em>Sample questions: </em></p> <ul> <li>Is there any potentially personally identifiable data or sensitive information in this Data Lifeboat (either yours or someone else’s) that you wouldn’t want someone to see?</li> <li>Tell us who is in the photos, are they aware they are being included in this Data Lifeboat, could they have reasonably given consent (if not, why)?</li> </ul> <p></li> <li> <h4>Context and Description</h4> <p><em>Why it matters:</em> providing rich, contextual information (which the free text input allows for) can help supplement existing collections with missing information, as well as helping to avoid misinterpretation or detachment from origins.</p> <p><em>Sample questions:</em></p> <ul> <li>Can you add context or description to an image(s) in this Data Lifeboat?</li> <li>Could you add context to comments, tags or groups within this Data Lifeboat?</li> <li>Do the titles and descriptions accurately reflect the photos in this Data Lifeboat?</li> <li>What do you think is important about this image(s) that you want a future viewer of the Data Lifeboat to understand?</li> </ul> <p></li> <li> <h4>Ethics and Cultural Sensitivites</h4> <p><em>Why it matters:</em> we have the opportunity to append ethics to historically unjust collections by giving space for Data Lifeboat creators to write how the images <span style="text-decoration: underline">should</span> be viewed, understood and should [more on previous interventions <a href="https://www.flickr.org/from-desiderata-to-readmes-pt1/">here</a>]</p> <p><em>Sample questions: </em></p> <ul> <li>Are you a member of the community this Data Lifeboat is depicting?</li> <li>If not, have you thought about the implications for the community?</li> <li>Are there potential sensitivities in the information stored in this Data Lifeboat that future viewers should be aware of?</li> <li>Are there historical or current harms enacted in this material within the Data Lifeboat (if so, would you like to explain these to a future viewer)?</li> <li>Think about whether this Data Lifeboat contains content that could be used in another way by bad actors, should you include them?</li> </ul> <p></li> <li> <h4>Future Access and Use</h4> <p><em>Why it matters:</em> outlining conditions or requests for future access and use of the Data Lifeboat collection, whilst this cannot be secured, can at least serve as guardrails.</p> <p><em>Sample questions: </em></p> <ul> <li>Is this Data Lifeboat just for you, or could it be public one day?</li> <li>Who will you be sharing this Data Lifeboat with? Could you nominate a ‘trusted friend’ to also keep a copy of this Data Lifeboat?</li> <li>Would you like to see the Data Lifeboat collection returned to the community (if so, who to)?</li> <li>What should or should not be done with this Data Lifeboat and its contents?</li> </ul> <p></li> <li> <h4>Storage and Safe Harbors</h4> <p><em>Why it matters:</em> recording (or suggesting) where the Data Lifeboat could end up prompts creators to think about future viewers or stakeholders. There may be the possibility, at point of creation, to designate a Safe Harbor location and its (desired) conditions for storage.</p> <p><em>Sample questions: </em></p> <ul> <li>Where will this Data Lifeboat go once downloaded?</li> <li>Who would you like to notify about the creation of this Data Lifeboat, is there anyone you’d like to send a copy to?</li> <li>Where would you ideally like this Data Lifeboat “docked”?</li> </ul> <p></li> <li> <h4>Long-term Vision</h4> <p><em>Why it matters:</em> articulating (or attempting to) a long-term vision can help ensure the Data Lifeboat remains meaningful and intact for as long as possible, even after the creator is no longer directly involved.</p> <p><em>Sample questions:</em></p> <ul> <li>Have you included enough information about this Data Lifeboat so you would remember why you made it?</li> <li>Would someone else know why you made it?</li> <li>What/who might represent your interests in this Data Lifeboat after you are no longer around?</li> <li>For whom are you saving these materials in the Data Lifeboat, and what do you want them to understand?</li> </ul> <p></li> </ol> <p> </p> <h3>Conclusion: README as Cipher?</h3> <p>With these questions in mind, we have a unique opportunity to embed conscious curation, guided by C.A.R.E. and F.A.I.R. principles, into long-term digital preservation of <a href="http://Flickr.com">Flickr.com</a>. The README prompts Data Lifeboat creators to thoughtfully consider the ethical dimensions of their future collections.</p> <p>This deliberate slowness or friction in the process is, we believe, a strength. However, it is equally important that writing a README is an enjoyable and engaging experience. Inventing a pleasant yet inquiring process will be central to the next phase of our work, where service design will play a key role. We will need to decide where to strike the balance between a README flow that is thought-provoking and poetic versus one that is instructive and immediately legible.</p> <p>While the extent to which the README’s conditions can be made machine-readable remains an open question, there may be ways to encode conditions for use or distribution into the Data Lifeboat itself, or the Safe Harbor Network. It is essential to acknowledge, however, that a README is not a binding promise—it cannot guarantee the fulfilment of all wishes for all time. At the very least, it represents a thoughtful attempt to record the creator’s intentions.</p> <p>The README serves as a cipher for future reception and reconstruction, a snapshot of the present, and a gift to future explorers.</p> <p></p> <p></p> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="media-image-gallery"> <div class="grid-container fluid-"> <div class="grid-x align-center grid-padding-x"> <div class="cell large-10"> <div class="item"> <div class="media media-relative ratio-16-9"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="764" src="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2868998123_2818efbaa6_b.jpg?w=1024" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="" srcset="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2868998123_2818efbaa6_b.jpg 1024w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2868998123_2818efbaa6_b.jpg?resize=300,224 300w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2868998123_2818efbaa6_b.jpg?resize=768,573 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> </div> <span class="light-caption "><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryofnsw/2868998123/in/album-72157607350816312" class="caption-link" target="_blank">Skeleton of sea-elephant & Harold Hamilton | State Library of New South Wales <span class="inline ffa fa-external-link-alt"></span></a></span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <p>The post <a href="https://www.flickr.org/from-desiderata-to-readmes-the-case-for-a-c-a-r-e-full-data-lifeboat-pt-ii/">From Desiderata to READMEs: The case for a C.A.R.E.-full Data Lifeboat Pt. II</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.flickr.org">Flickr Foundation</a>.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">8347</post-id> <media:thumbnail url="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/52615764936_552cec4c3a_k.jpg" /> <media:content url="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/52615764936_552cec4c3a_k.jpg" medium="image"> <media:title type="html">Zoology specimens, Australasian Antarctic Expedition Reports, 1911-1914</media:title> </media:content> </item> <item> <title>Announcing our first 2025 Research Fellows</title> <link>https://www.flickr.org/announcing-our-first-2025-research-fellows/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[George Oates]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Mon, 06 Jan 2025 11:20:42 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Content Mobility]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Creative Archives]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Fellows]]></category> <category><![CDATA[George Oates]]></category> <category><![CDATA["Emily Fitzgerald"]]></category> <category><![CDATA["Molly Sherman"]]></category> <category><![CDATA[fellows]]></category> <category><![CDATA[research]]></category> <category><![CDATA[research fellows]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.flickr.org/?p=8705</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>The post <a href="https://www.flickr.org/announcing-our-first-2025-research-fellows/">Announcing our first 2025 Research Fellows</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.flickr.org">Flickr Foundation</a>.</p> ]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<section class="header "> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-10"> <div class="content"> <h2>Announcing our first Research Fellows for 2025!</h2><p><em>We’re thrilled to welcome Emily Fitzgerald & Molly Sherman as our first research fellow pair, and look forward to supporting their important project,</em> <strong>Reproductive Reproductions</strong>.</p> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="featured-image featured-image-large"> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center align-middle "> <div class="cell has-media medium-7 medium-order-1"> <div class="media media-relative ratio-7-6 img_"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="799" height="607" src="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/54215784797_bca3214dd3_c.jpg?w=799" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="" srcset="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/54215784797_bca3214dd3_c.jpg 799w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/54215784797_bca3214dd3_c.jpg?resize=300,228 300w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/54215784797_bca3214dd3_c.jpg?resize=768,583 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 799px) 100vw, 799px" /> </div> </div> <div class="cell medium-5 medium-order-2"> <div class="content content- link-less"> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text color-transparent-bg"> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-8"> <p></p> <p>We are Emily Fitzgerald and Molly Sherman, mothers, artists, and educators based in Portland, Oregon, and San Antonio, Texas. We are excited to embark on our Flickr Foundation Research Fellowship.</p> <p>For the past decade, we have collaborated on projects exploring themes of intergenerational relationships, housing, family, and care. With backgrounds in social practice, design, and photography, we create public platforms that foster reciprocal exchange and invite active audience engagement. Our work explores the process of collective storytelling, balancing the relational and the aesthetic, and making conceptual and visual decisions collaboratively. Central to our practice is the notion of co-authorship, where the ‘subject’ is also a partner in the creative process. Through this approach, we aim to build structures that promote care, connection, and dialogue.</p> <p> </p> <p>Over the past many years our personal experiences with miscarriage, abortion, infertility, high-risk pregnancy, disability, single parenting, and IVF have shaped and reframed our work.. These themes are deeply woven into the fabric of our practice and have led us to create the <em>People’s Clinic for Reproductive Empathy</em>. The People’s Clinic for Reproductive Empathy, a project that explores reproductive experiences as a spectrum rather than isolated events, reflecting the varied journeys many individuals face throughout their lives—from infertility to pregnancy, abortion, miscarriage, menopause, and parenthood.</p>  </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="media-image-gallery"> <div class="grid-container fluid-"> <div class="grid-x align-center grid-padding-x"> <div class="cell large-10"> <div class="owl-carousel owl-carousel-media-image-gallery owl-theme owl-item-equalize owl-stage-visible owl-nav-alt2" data-loop="true"> <div class="item"> <div class="media media-relative ratio-16-9"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="900" height="600" src="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/MG_5556_900.jpg?w=900" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="" srcset="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/MG_5556_900.jpg 900w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/MG_5556_900.jpg?resize=300,200 300w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/MG_5556_900.jpg?resize=768,512 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px" /> </div> <span class="light-caption ">Emily Fitzgerald, <em>It’s Temporary</em>, Ongoing. <br />A new body of personal work that explores and reflects on early motherhood. This ongoing photo series explores what it means to be a working parent, a single parent, an older parent, a parent to a young child caring for aging parents, and an artist, and where these elements clash or have the potential to support one another. </span> </div> <div class="item"> <div class="media media-relative ratio-16-9"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="683" src="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/Copy-of-Emily_Fitzgerald1-1.jpg?w=1024" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="" srcset="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/Copy-of-Emily_Fitzgerald1-1.jpg 1200w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/Copy-of-Emily_Fitzgerald1-1.jpg?resize=300,200 300w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/Copy-of-Emily_Fitzgerald1-1.jpg?resize=768,512 768w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/Copy-of-Emily_Fitzgerald1-1.jpg?resize=1024,683 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> </div> <span class="light-caption ">Emily Fitzgerald, <em>It’s Temporary</em>, Ongoing. </span> </div> <div class="item"> <div class="media media-relative ratio-16-9"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="682" src="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/000054690008-copy_1600_c.jpg?w=1024" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="" srcset="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/000054690008-copy_1600_c.jpg 1600w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/000054690008-copy_1600_c.jpg?resize=300,200 300w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/000054690008-copy_1600_c.jpg?resize=768,512 768w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/000054690008-copy_1600_c.jpg?resize=1024,682 1024w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/000054690008-copy_1600_c.jpg?resize=1536,1023 1536w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> </div> <span class="light-caption ">Emily Fitzgerald, <i>23/24</i>, Ongoing. <br />A series about what it means to make it work and make work as a single parent. It looks at the caretaking responsibilities of the “sandwich generation” and how we adapt and create the communities that are inherent to our survival. How do we cope as mothers? As the caretakers? As single parents? How do we build structures that allow us to find joy? I find solace in art and image making and this ongoing photo-series is a visual exploration of this. This series is primarily shot on 35 mm film. </span> </div> <div class="item"> <div class="media media-relative ratio-16-9"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="768" src="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/01/book.jpg?w=1024" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="" srcset="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/01/book.jpg 1024w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/01/book.jpg?resize=300,225 300w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/01/book.jpg?resize=768,576 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> </div> <span class="light-caption ">Emily Fitzgerald and Molly Sherman, Spread from <em>Reproductive Reproductions: A Collective Archive</em>, half-letter, 72-pages, 2024. <br />An artists’ publication that shares people’s collective experiences of the reproductive spectrum. The publication was created through community-engaged workshops at the 2024 Museum of Motherhood Conference. Participants were invited to share reproductive experiences and contribute to this collaborative publication, amplifying narratives of birthing individuals, caretakers, and those who choose not to reproduce. This publication invites readers to reflect on their reproductive journeys through contents including a timeline of reproduction that includes both personal and political monumental events, questions about reproduction generated by participants, and images reflecting on the spectrum of reproductive care in the US. The images represent the interconnected spectrum of women’s reproductive experience, including but not limited to abortion, motherhood, infertility, pregnancy loss, queer conception, race, and disability. We are interested in visualizing how these seemingly different reproductive experiences are intertwined personally and politically for women worldwide. The publication is risograph printed, rubber band bound, and distributed to the participants nationally and internationally. The publication is typeset in Kéroïne, a typeface with exaggerated female features designed by Charlotte Rohde, who explores “typography as the interface between image and language and [how it] informs feminist discourses in our societies.</span> </div> <div class="item"> <div class="media media-relative ratio-16-9"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1023" height="895" src="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/01/hair.jpg?w=1023" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="" srcset="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/01/hair.jpg 1023w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/01/hair.jpg?resize=300,262 300w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/01/hair.jpg?resize=768,672 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1023px) 100vw, 1023px" /> </div> <span class="light-caption "><em>First Haircut</em>, Participant submission from Reproductive Reproductions workshop, 2024. </span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text color-transparent-bg"> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-8"> <p><strong>As Research Fellows, we will curate a comprehensive collection of images from Flickr that captures the past 20 years of digital storytelling and uniquely locates the vast spectrum of reproductive experience into a single collection.</strong></p> <p>We will create a collection that ethically represents the interconnected aspects of the reproductive spectrum and builds understanding around the diverse journeys shared by an overwhelming number of people. Our research will explore how cultural, political, and personal identities impact agency and health across the spectrum of reproductive experiences—such as abortion, miscarriage, infertility, queer conception, motherhood, disability, IVF, pregnancy, and breastfeeding. We will establish parameters to ensure inclusivity across race, class, gender, and age and carefully consider the ethics of representation and image-making in our visual and conceptual decision-making throughout this fellowship, along with the way photography has been used to reflect, mobilize, and build networks and movements throughout history.</p> <p> </p> <p>Our research will culminate in the form of a photobook. The contents of the photobook will include hundreds of Flickr images and an appendix of selected metadata associated with each image—preserving a highly accessible digital collection and elevating it as an archival object. We will build the digital collection to ensure that the metadata is reflective of our research and accessible to a greater public, while examining the project’s potential relationship with the Flickr Foundation’s <a href="https://www.flickr.org/programs/content-mobility/data-lifeboat/">Data Lifeboat</a> project.</p> <p> </p> <p>The photobook will include oral history interviews with past and present leaders in the fight for reproductive rights and care. These texts will frame the themes represented through the images. The publications will provide an innovative approach to image making and a renewed perspective on archives, including methods of collective and counter archiving. Our research and the publication will explore the boundaries and accessibility of photographic archives, highlight silenced and hidden narratives, and visualize the spectrum of reproductive experience shared by women across history, geography, race, and class.</p> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text"><div class="grid-container"><div class="grid-x align-center"><div class="cell medium-10"> <p></p> </div></div></div></section><p>The post <a href="https://www.flickr.org/announcing-our-first-2025-research-fellows/">Announcing our first 2025 Research Fellows</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.flickr.org">Flickr Foundation</a>.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">8705</post-id> <media:thumbnail url="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/MG_5556_900.jpg" /> <media:content url="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/MG_5556_900.jpg" medium="image"> <media:title type="html">_MG_5556_900</media:title> </media:content> </item> <item> <title>From Desiderata to READMEs: The case for a C.A.R.E.-full Data Lifeboat Pt. I</title> <link>https://www.flickr.org/from-desiderata-to-readmes-pt1/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[tori]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Fri, 20 Dec 2024 09:20:18 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Content Mobility]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Data Lifeboat]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Fattori McKenna]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Research]]></category> <category><![CDATA[conscious collecting]]></category> <category><![CDATA[data lifeboat]]></category> <category><![CDATA[ethical archives]]></category> <category><![CDATA[mellon research]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.flickr.org/?p=8350</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>The post <a href="https://www.flickr.org/from-desiderata-to-readmes-pt1/">From Desiderata to READMEs: The case for a C.A.R.E.-full Data Lifeboat Pt. I</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.flickr.org">Flickr Foundation</a>.</p> ]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<section class="header "> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x"> <div class="cell "> <div class="content"> <span class="light-caption ">By Fattori McKenna</span><h2>From Desiderata to READMEs: The case for a C.A.R.E.-full Data Lifeboat Pt. I</h2><p><span class="notion-enable-hover">This is the first of a two-part blog post where we detail our thinking around ethics and the Data Lifeboat README function. In this blog-post we reflect on the theoretical precursors and structural interventions that inform our approach. We specifically question how these dovetail with the dataset we are working with (i.e. images on Flickr.com) and the tool we’re developing, the Data Lifeboat. In part 2 (<a href="https://www.flickr.org/from-desiderata-to-readmes-the-case-for-a-c-a-r-e-full-data-lifeboat-pt-ii/">now available</a>), we will detail the learnings from our ethics session at the <a href="https://www.flickr.org/our-data-lifeboat-workshops-are-complete/">Mellon co-design workshops</a> and how we plan to embed these into the README feature. </span></p> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="media-image-gallery"> <div class="grid-container fluid-"> <div class="grid-x align-center grid-padding-x"> <div class="cell large-10"> <div class="item"> <div class="media media-relative ratio-16-9"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="855" src="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2551445076_b514779ff2_o11.jpg?w=1024" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="Installation View of Smithsonian Photography Exhibition Art Section" srcset="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2551445076_b514779ff2_o11.jpg 1900w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2551445076_b514779ff2_o11.jpg?resize=300,251 300w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2551445076_b514779ff2_o11.jpg?resize=768,641 768w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2551445076_b514779ff2_o11.jpg?resize=1024,855 1024w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2551445076_b514779ff2_o11.jpg?resize=1536,1283 1536w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> </div> <span class="light-caption "><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/smithsonian/2551445076/in/album-72157604590559182" class="caption-link" target="_blank">Installation View of Smithsonian Photography Exhibition Art Section | Smithsonian Institution <span class="inline ffa fa-external-link-alt"></span></a></span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text color-transparent-bg"> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-8"> <p>Spencer Baird, the American naturalist and first curator of the Smithsonian Institution, instructed his collectors in ‘the field’ what to collect, how to describe it and how to preserve it until returning back Eastwards, carts laden. <a href="https://archives.dickinson.edu/document-descriptions/general-directions-collecting-and-preserving-objects-natural-history-spencer">His directions included</a>:</p> <blockquote><p><em>Birds and mammalia larger than a rat should be skinned. </em><em>For insects and bugs — the harder kinds may be put in liquor, but the vessels and bottles should not be very large. </em><em>Fishes under six inches in length need not have the abdominal incision… Specimens with scales and fins perfect, should be selected and if convenient, stitched or pinned in bits of muslin to preserve the scales. </em><em>Skulls of quadrupeds may be prepared by boiling in water for a few hours… A little potash or ley will facilitate the operation.</em></p></blockquote> <p>Baird’s 1848 <em>General Directions for Collecting and Preserving Objects of Natural History </em>is an example of a collecting guide, also known at the time as a <em>desiderata</em> (literally ‘desired things’). It is this archival architecture that Hannah Turner (2021) takes critical aim at in <em><a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/C/bo70117236.html">Cataloguing Culture: Legacies of Colonialism in Museum Documentation</a>.</em> According to Turner, Baird’s design “enabled collectors in the field and museum workers to slot objects into existing categories of knowledge”.</p> <p>Whilst the desiderata prompted the diffuse and amateur spread of collecting in the 19th century, no doubt flooding burgeoning institutional collections with artefacts from the so-called ‘field’, the input and classification systems these collecting guides held came with their own risks. Baird’s 1848 desiderata shockingly includes human subjects—Indigenous people—perceived as extensions of the natural world and thus procurable materials in a concerted attempt to both Other and historicise. Later collecting guides would be issued for indigenous tribal artefacts, such as the Haíłzaqv-Haida Great Canoe – now in the American Museum of Natural History’s Northwest Coast Hall – as well as capturing intangible cultural artefacts – as documented in Kara Lewis’ study of the 1890 collection of Passamaquoddy wax recording cylinders used for tribal music and language. But Turner pivots our focus away from <em>what</em> has been collected, and instead towards <em>how</em> these objects were collected, explaining, <strong>“practices and technologies, embedded in catalogues, have ethical consequences”.</strong></p> <p>While many physical artefacts have been returned to Indigenous tribes through activist-turned-institutional measures (such as the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/482654">repatriation of Iroquois Wampum belts</a> from the National Museum of the American Indian or the <a href="https://arran.no/?id=957024492&Article=430">Bååstede</a> project returning Sami cultural heritage from Norway’s national museums), <strong>the logic of the collecting guides remains</strong>. Two centuries later, the nomenclature and classification systems from these collecting guides have been largely transposed into digital collection management systems (CMS), along with digital copies of the objects themselves. Despite noteworthy efforts to to provide greater access and transparency through F.A.I.R. principles or rewrite and reclaim archival knowledge systems—such as Traditional Knowledge (T.K.) Labels and C.A.R.E. principles, Kara Lewis (<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/15501906241234046">2024</a>) notes that “because these systems developed out of the classification structures before them, and regardless of how much more open and accessible they become, they continue to live with the colonial legacies ingrained within them”. The slowness of the Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (G.L.A.M.) sector to adapt, Lewis continues, stems less from “an unwillingness to change, and more with budgets that do not prioritize CMS customizations”. Evidently a challenge lies in the rigidly programmed nature of rationalising cultural description for computational input.</p> <p>In our own <a href="https://www.flickr.org/programs/content-mobility/">Content Mobility</a> programme, the <a href="https://www.flickr.org/programs/content-mobility/data-lifeboat/">Data Lifeboat project</a>, we propose that creators write a README. In our working prototype, the input is an open-text field, allowing creators to write as much or as little as they wish about their Data Lifeboat’s purpose, contents, and future intentions. However, considering Turner’s cautionary perspective, we face a modern parallel: today’s desiderata is data, and the field is the social web—deceptively public for users to browse and “Right-Click-Save” at will. We realised that <strong>in designing the input architecture for Data Lifeboats, we could inadvertently be creating a 21st century desiderata: a seemingly open and neutral digital collecting tool that beneath the surface risks perpetuating existing inequalities.</strong></p> <p>This blog-post will introduce the theoretical and ethical underpinnings to the Data Lifeboat’s collecting guide, or README, that we want to design. The decades of remedy and reconciliatory work, tirelessly driven primarily by Indigenous rights activists, in addressing the archival injustices first cemented by early collecting guides provides a robust starting point for embedding ethics into the Data Lifeboat. Indigenous cultural heritage inevitably exists within Flickr’s collections, particularly among our <a href="https://commons.flickr.org/">Flickr Commons</a> members who are actively pursuing their own reconciliation initiatives. <strong>Yet the value of these interventions extends beyond Indigenous cultural heritage, serving as a foundation for ethical data practices that benefit <em>all</em> data subjects in the age of Big Data.</strong></p> <p></p> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="media-image-gallery"> <div class="grid-container fluid-"> <div class="grid-x align-center grid-padding-x"> <div class="cell large-10"> <div class="item"> <div class="media media-relative ratio-16-9"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="800" height="640" src="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2575868646_7cae858bd0_c.jpg?w=800" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="" srcset="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2575868646_7cae858bd0_c.jpg 800w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2575868646_7cae858bd0_c.jpg?resize=300,240 300w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2575868646_7cae858bd0_c.jpg?resize=768,614 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /> </div> <span class="light-caption "><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/smithsonian/2575868646/in/faves-201557342@N03/" class="caption-link" target="_blank">Untitled, Smithsonian Institution <span class="inline ffa fa-external-link-alt"></span></a></span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text color-transparent-bg"> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-8"> <h3>A Brief History of C.A.R.E Principles</h3> <p>Building on decades of Indigenous activism and scholarship in restitution and reconciliation, the <a href="https://www.gida-global.org/care">C.A.R.E. principles</a> emerged in 2018 from a robust lineage of interventions, such as <em>Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act</em> (<a href="https://www.nps.gov/subjects/nagpra/index.htm">NAGPRA</a>, 1990) and <em>The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples</em> (<a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2018/11/UNDRIP_E_web.pdf">UNDRIP</a>, 2007), which sought to recognise and restore Indigenous sovereignty over tangible and intangible cultural heritage.</p> <p>These earlier frameworks were primarily rooted in consultation processes with Indigenous communities, ensuring that their consent and governance shaped the management of artefacts and knowledge systems. For instance, NAGPRA enabled tribes to reclaim human remains and sacred objects through formalised dialogues and consultation sessions with museums. Similarly, <a href="https://localcontexts.org/labels/traditional-knowledge-labels/">Traditional Knowledge Labels</a> (Local Contexts Initiative) were designed to identify Indigenous protocols for accessing and using knowledge within the museum’s existing collection, for instance a tribal object may be reserved for viewing only by female tribal members. <strong>These methods worked effectively within the domain of physical collections but faltered when confronted with the scale and opaqueness of data in the digital age.</strong></p> <p>In this context, Indigenous governance of data emerged as essential, particularly for sensitive datasets such as health records, where <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8508308/">documented misuse</a> showed evidence of perpetuating harm. As the Data Science field developed, it often prioritised the technical ideals of <a href="https://www.go-fair.org/fair-principles/">F.A.I.R. principles</a> (<span class="notion-enable-hover">Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable</span>), which advocate for improved usability and discoverability of data, to counter increasingly oblique and privatised resources. Though valuable, F.A.I.R. principles fell short on the ethical dimensions of data, particularly on how data is collected and used in ways that affect already at-risk communities (see also <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/304513/weapons-of-math-destruction-by-oneil-cathy/9780141985411">O’Neil 2016</a>, <a href="https://virginia-eubanks.com/automating-inequality/">Eubanks 2018</a>, and <a href="https://aas.princeton.edu/publications/research/race-after-technology-abolitionist-tools-new-jim-code">Benjamin 2019</a>). As the Global Indigenous Data Alliance argued:</p> <blockquote><p><span class="discussion-level-1 discussion-id-91981dfe-3ed4-41b2-bce0-e3f900855cc6 notion-enable-hover">“Mainstream values related to research and data are often inconsistent with Indigenous cultures and collective rights”</span></p></blockquote> <p>Recognising the challenges posed by Big Data and Machine Learning (ML)—from entrenched bias in data to the opacity of ML algorithms—Indigenous groups such as the Te Mana Raraunga Māori Data Sovereignty Network, the US Indigenous Data Sovereignty Network, and the Maiam nayri Wingara Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Data Sovereignty Collective led efforts to articulate frameworks for ethical data governance. These efforts culminated in a global, inter-tribal workshop in Gaborone, Botswana, in 2018, convened by Stephanie Russo Carroll and Maui Hudson in collaboration with the Research Data Alliance (RDA) International Indigenous Data Sovereignty Interest Group. The workshop formalised the <a href="https://www.gida-global.org/care">C.A.R.E. principles</a>, which were published by the Global Indigenous Data Alliance in September 2019 and proposed as a governance framework with <strong>people and purpose at its core.</strong></p> <p>The <strong>C.A.R.E. principles</strong> foreground the following four values around data:</p> <ol> <li><strong>Collective Benefit</strong>: Data must enhance collective well-being and serve the communities to which it pertains.</li> <li><strong>Authority to Control</strong>: Communities must retain governance over their data and decide how it is accessed, used, and shared.</li> <li><strong>Responsibility</strong>: Data handlers must minimise harm and ensure alignment with community values.</li> <li><strong>Ethics</strong>: Ethical considerations rooted in cultural values and collective rights must guide all stages of the data lifecycle.</li> </ol> <p></p> <p></p> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="media-image-gallery"> <div class="grid-container fluid-"> <div class="grid-x align-center grid-padding-x"> <div class="cell large-10"> <div class="item"> <div class="media media-relative ratio-16-9"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="800" height="645" src="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2422515283_312748eb41_c.jpg?w=800" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="" srcset="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2422515283_312748eb41_c.jpg 800w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2422515283_312748eb41_c.jpg?resize=300,242 300w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2422515283_312748eb41_c.jpg?resize=768,619 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /> </div> <span class="light-caption "><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/smithsonian/2422515283/in/faves-201557342@N03/" class="caption-link" target="_blank">Untitled, Smithsonian Institution <span class="inline ffa fa-external-link-alt"></span></a></span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text color-transparent-bg"> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-8"> <h3>C.A.R.E. in Data Lifeboats?</h3> <p>While the C.A.R.E. principles were initially developed to address historical data inequities and exploitation faced by Indigenous communities, they offer a framework that can benefit all data practices: as the Global Indigenous Data Alliance argues, <strong>“Being CARE-Full is a prerequisite for equitable data and data practices.”</strong></p> <p>We believe the principles are important for Data Lifeboat, as collecting networked images from Flickr poses the following complexities:</p> <ul> <li>Data Lifeboat creators will be able to include images from Flickr Commons members (which may include images of culturally sensitive content)</li> <li>Data Lifeboat creators may be able to include images from other Flickr members, besides themselves</li> <li>Subjects of photographs in a Data Lifeboat may be from historically at-risk groups</li> <li>Data Lifeboats are designed to last and therefore may be separated from their original owners, intents and contexts.</li> </ul> <p>The Global Inidgenous Data Alliance asserts, their principles must guide every stage of data governance <strong>“from collection to curation, from access to application, with implications and responsibilities for a broad range of entities from funders to data users.”</strong> The creation of a Data Lifeboat is an opportunity to create a new collection, thus we have the opportunity to embed C.A.R.E. principles from the start. Although we cannot control how Data Lifeboats will be used or handled after their creation, we can attempt to establish an architecture for encouraging that C.A.R.E. is <strong>deployed throughout the data lifecycle</strong>.</p> <p></p> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="media-image-gallery"> <div class="grid-container fluid-"> <div class="grid-x align-center grid-padding-x"> <div class="cell large-10"> <div class="item"> <div class="media media-relative ratio-16-9"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="800" height="638" src="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2422570279_9bf6564524_c.jpg?w=800" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="" srcset="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2422570279_9bf6564524_c.jpg 800w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2422570279_9bf6564524_c.jpg?resize=300,239 300w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2422570279_9bf6564524_c.jpg?resize=768,612 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /> </div> <span class="light-caption "><a href="https://flic.kr/p/4G5iK6" class="caption-link" target="_blank">Untitled, Smithsonian Institution <span class="inline ffa fa-external-link-alt"></span></a></span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text color-transparent-bg"> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-8"> <h3>Enter: The README</h3> <p>Our ambition for the Data Lifeboat (and the ethos behind many of <a href="http://Flickr.org">Flickr.org</a> programmes) is the principle of “conscious collecting”. We aim to move away from the mindset of perpetual accumulation that plagues both museums and Big Tech alike—a mindset that advances a dangerous future, as cautioned by both anti-colonialist and <a href="https://ipres2024.pubpub.org/pub/1sm257xx/release/2">environmentalist critiques</a>. Conscious collecting allows us to better consider and care for what we already have.</p> <p>One of the possible ways we can embed conscious collecting is through the inclusion of a README—a reflective, narrative-driven process for creating a Data Lifeboat.</p> <p>READMEs are files traditionally used in software development and distribution that contain information about files within the directory. It is often in the form of plain text (.txt, .md), to maximise readability, frequently containing information about operating instructions, troubleshooting, credits, licensing and changelogs, intended to be read on start-up. In the Data Lifeboat, we have adopted this container to supplement the files. Data Lifeboat creators are introduced to the README in the creation process and, in the present prototype, are met with the following prompts to assist writing:</p> <ul> <li><em>Tell the future why you are making this Data Lifeboat.</em></li> <li><em>Is there anything special you’d like future viewers to know about the contents? Anything to be careful about?</em></li> </ul> <p>(These prompts are not fixed, as you’ll read in Part 2)</p> <p>During our workshops, participants noted the positive (and rarely seen) experience of <strong>introducing friction to data preservation</strong>. This friction slows down the act of collecting and creates space to engage with the social and ethical dimensions of the content. As Christen & Andersen (<a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10502-019-09307-x">2019</a>) emphasise in their call for Slow Archives, <strong>“Slowing down creates a necessary space for emphasising how knowledge is produced, circulated, and exchanged through a series of relationships”.</strong> We hope that Data Lifeboat’s README will contribute to Christen & Andersen’s invocation for the “development of new methodologies that move toward archival justice that is reparative, reflective, accountable, and restorative”.</p> <p>We propose three primary functions of the README in a Data Lifeboat:</p> <ol> <li> <h4><strong>Telling the Story of an Archive</strong></h4> <p>Boast, Bravo, and Srinivasan (<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01972240701575635">2018</a>), reflecting on Inuit artefacts in an institutional museum collection, write that its transplant results in the deprivation <strong>of “richly situated life of objects in their communities and places of origin.” Once subsumed into a collection, artefacts often suffer the “loss of narrative and thick descriptions when transporting them to distant collections”.</strong></p> <p>We are conscious that this could be the fate of many images once transplanted in a Data Lifeboat. Questions emerged in our workshops as to how to maintain the contextual world around the object, speaking of not only its social metadata (comments, tags, groups, albums) but also the more personal levers of choice, value and connection. A README resists the diminishment of narrative by creating opportunities to retain and reflect on the relational life of the materials.</p> <p>The README directly resists the archival instinct toward neutrality, by its very format it holds that this can never be true. Boden critiques the paucity of current content management systems, their highly structured input formats cannot meet our responsibilities to communities as they do not give space to fully citing how information came to be known and associated with an object and on whose authority. Boden argues for “reflections on the knowledge production process”, which is what we intend the README to encourage the Data Lifeboat creator to do. The README prompts (could) suggest Data Lifeboat creator reflect on issues around <strong>ownership</strong> (e.g. is this your photo?), <strong>consent</strong> (e.g. were all photo subjects able to consent to inclusion in a Data Lifeboat?), and <strong>embedded power relations</strong> (e.g. are there any persecuted minorities in this Data Lifeboat?): acknowledging the archive is never objective.</p> <p>More poetically, the README could prompt greater storytelling, serving as a canvas for both critical and emotional reflection on the content of a Data Lifeboat. Through guided prompts, creators could explore their personal connections to the images, share the stories behind their selection process, and document the emotional resonance of their collection. A README allows creators to capture and contextualise not only the images themselves, but to add layers of personal inscription and meaning, creating a richer, more distributed archive.</li> <li> <h4><strong>Decentralised and Distributed Annotation</strong></h4> <p>The Data Lifeboat constitutes a new collecting format that intends to operate outside traditional archival systems’ rigid limitations and universalising classification schemes. The README encourages decentralised curation and annotation by enabling communities to directly contribute to selecting and contextualising archival and contemporary images, fostering what <a href="https://istohuvila.fi/sites/default/files/IstoHuvila_ParticipatoryArchivePrePrint.pdf">Huvila</a> (2008) terms the ‘participatory archive’ [more on Data Lifeboat as a tool for decentralised curation <a href="https://www.flickr.org/a-phoenix-in-paris-data-lifeboats-for-user-generated-histories/">here</a>].</p> <p>User-generated descriptions such as comments, tags, groups, and galleries — known on Flickr as ‘social metadata’ —serve as “ontological keys that unlock the doors to diverse, rich, and incommensurable knowledge communities” (Boast et al., <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01972240701575635">2018</a>), embracing multiple ways of knowing the world. Together, these create ‘folksonomies’—socially-generated digital classification systems that David Sturz argues are particularly well-suited to “loosely-defined, developing fields,” such as photo subjects and themes often overlooked by the institutional canon. <strong>The Data Lifeboat captures the rich, social media that is native to Flickr, preserving decades worth of user contributions.</strong></p> <p>The success of community annotation projects has been well-documented. The Library of Congress’s own Flickr Pilot Project demonstrated how community input enhanced detail, correction, and enrichment. As Michelle Springer et al. (<a href="https://guides.loc.gov/flickr/pilot-project-report">2018</a>) note, “many of our old photos came to us with very little description and that additional description would be appreciated”. Within nine months of joining Flickr, committing to a hands-off approach, the Library of Congress accumulated 67,000 community-added tags. “The wealth of interaction and engagement that has taken place within the comments section has resulted in immediate benefits both for the Library and users of the collections,” continues Springer et al. After staff verification, these corrections and additions to captions and titles demonstrated how decentralised annotation could reshape the central archive itself. As Laura Farley (<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24589934">2014</a>) observes, community annotation “challenges archivists to see their collections not as closely guarded property of the repository, but instead as records belonging to a society of users”.</p> <p>Beyond capturing existing metadata, the README enables Data Lifeboat creators to add free-form context, such as correcting erroneous tags or clarifying specific terminology that future viewers might misinterpret—like the Portals to Hell group. As Duff and Harris (<a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02435625">2002</a>) write, <strong>“the power to describe is the power to make and remake records and to determine how they will be used and remade in the future. Each story we tell about our records, each description we compile, changes the meaning of records and recreates them</strong>” — the README hands over the narrative power to describe.</li> <li> <h4><strong>Data Restitution and Justice</strong></h4> <p>Thinking speculatively, the README could serve an even more transformative purpose as a tool for <strong>digital restitution</strong>. Through the Data Lifeboat framework, communities could reclaim contested archival materials and reintegrate them into their own digital ecosystems. This approach aligns with “Steal It Back” (Rivera-Carlisle, <a href="https://revistaheranca.com/index.php/heranca/article/view/676/590">2023</a>) initiatives such as <a href="https://www.looty.art/">Looty</a>, which creates digital twins of contested artefacts, currently held in Western museums. By leveraging digital technologies, these initiatives counter the slow response of GLAM institutions to restitution calls. As Pavis and Wallace (<a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4323678">2023</a>) note, digital restitution offers the chance to “reverse existing power hierarchies and restore power with the peoples, communities, and countries of origin”. In essence, this offers a form of “platform exit” that carves an alternative avenue of control of content to original creators or communities, regardless of who initially uploaded the materials. In an age of encroaching data extractivism, the power to disengage, though severe, for at-risk communities can be the “reassertion of autonomy and agency in the face of pervasive connectivity” (Kaun and Treré, <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110740202-011/html?lang=en&srsltid=AfmBOoq9IAvlN1-It7_HdfIDr2nZrsiFpyEfbfOFNUknoY0CpKsXdvwh">2021</a>).</p> <p>It is a well-documented challenge in digital archives that many of the original uploaders were not the original creators, which prompts ought to prompt reflections around copyright and privacy. As Payal Arora (<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1527476418806092">2019</a>) has noted our dominant frameworks largely ignore empirical realities of the Global South: <strong>“We need to open our purview to alternative meanings including paying heed to the desire for selective visibility, how privacy is often not a choice, and how the cost of privacy is deeply subjective”.</strong> Within the README, Data Lifeboat creators can establish terms for their collections, specifying viewing contexts, usage conditions, and other critical contextual information. They can also specify restrictions on where and how their images may be hosted or reused in the future (e.g. ‘I refuse to let these image be used in AI training data sets’). A README could allow for Data Lifeboat creators to expand and detail more fluid and cultural and context-specific conditions for privacy and re-use.</p> <p>At best, these terms would allow Data Lifeboat creators to articulate their preferences for how their materials are accessed, interpreted and reused in the future, functioning as an ethical safeguard. While these terms may not always be enforceable, they provide a clear record of the creators’ intentions. Looking ahead, we could envision the possibility of making these terms machine-readable and executable. The sustenance of these terms could potentially be incorporated into the governance framework of the Safe Harbor Network, our proposed decentralised storage system of cultural institutions that can hold Data Lifeboats for the long-term.</li> </ol> <p></p> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="media-image-gallery"> <div class="grid-container fluid-"> <div class="grid-x align-center grid-padding-x"> <div class="cell large-10"> <div class="item"> <div class="media media-relative ratio-16-9"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="844" src="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2574902675_c320bb530a_o1.jpg?w=1024" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="Untitled" srcset="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2574902675_c320bb530a_o1.jpg 1900w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2574902675_c320bb530a_o1.jpg?resize=300,247 300w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2574902675_c320bb530a_o1.jpg?resize=768,633 768w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2574902675_c320bb530a_o1.jpg?resize=1024,844 1024w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2574902675_c320bb530a_o1.jpg?resize=1536,1266 1536w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> </div> <span class="light-caption "><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/smithsonian/2574902675/in/album-72157604590559182" class="caption-link" target="_blank">Untitled, Smithsonian Institution <span class="inline ffa fa-external-link-alt"></span></a></span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text color-transparent-bg"> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-8"> <h3>Discussion: README as a Datasheet for Networked Social Photography Data Sets?</h3> <p>In the long history of cataloging and annotating data, Timnit Gebru et al.’s (<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.09010">2018</a>) <em>Datasheets for Datasets</em> stands out as an emerging best practice for the machine learning age. These datasheets provide “a structured approach to the description of datasets,” documenting provenance, purpose, and ethical considerations. By encouraging creators to critically reflect on the collection, composition, and application of datasets, datasheets foster transparency and accountability in an otherwise vast, opaque, and voraciously consuming sphere.</p> <p>The Digital Cultural Heritage space has made similar calls for datasheets in archival contexts, as they too handle large volumes of often uncontextualised and culturally sensitive data. As Alkemade et al. (<a href="https://cris.unibo.it/retrieve/b23ab9e2-74e7-41de-a527-8191c921b3fe/653f999dbc1c1.pdf">2023</a>) note, cultural heritage data is unique: “They are extremely diverse by nature, biased by definition and hardly ever created or collected with computation in mind”. They argue, “In contrast to industrial or research datasets that are assembled to create knowledge… cultural heritage datasets may present knowledge as it was fabricated in earlier times, or community-based knowledge from lost local contexts”. Given this uniqueness, digital cultural heritage requires a tailored datasheet format that enables rich, detailed contextualization reflecting both the passage of time and potentially lost or inaccessible meanings. Just as datasheets have transformed technical datasets, the README has the potential to reshape how we collect, interpret, and preserve the networked social photography that is native to the Flickr.com platform — something we argue is part of our collective digital heritage.</p> <p>There are, of course, limitations—neither datasheets nor READMEs will be a panacea for C.A.R.E-full data practices. Gebru et al. acknowledge that “Dataset creators cannot anticipate every possible use of a database”. The descriptive approach also presents possible trade-offs: “identifying unwanted societal biases often requires additional labels indicating demographic information about individuals,” which may conflict with privacy or data protection. Gebru notes that the Datasheet “will necessarily impose overhead on dataset creator”—we recognise this friction as a positive. Echoing Christen and Anderson’s call “<strong>Slowing down is about focusing differently, listening carefully, and acting ethically</strong>“.</p> <p></p> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="media-image-gallery"> <div class="grid-container fluid-"> <div class="grid-x align-center grid-padding-x"> <div class="cell large-10"> <div class="item"> <div class="media media-relative ratio-16-9"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="822" src="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2535750855_74def10a8b_o1.jpg?w=1024" class="attachment-large size-large" alt="Marshall Islands Navigation Chart" srcset="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2535750855_74def10a8b_o1.jpg 1124w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2535750855_74def10a8b_o1.jpg?resize=300,241 300w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2535750855_74def10a8b_o1.jpg?resize=768,616 768w, https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/2535750855_74def10a8b_o1.jpg?resize=1024,822 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> </div> <span class="light-caption "><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/smithsonian/2535750855/in/album-72157604590559182" class="caption-link" target="_blank">Marshall Islands Navigation Chart | Smithsonian Institution <span class="inline ffa fa-external-link-alt"></span></a></span> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text color-transparent-bg"> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-8"> <h3>Conclusion</h3> <p>Our hope is that the README is both <strong>a reflective and instructive tool</strong> that prompts Data Lifeboat Creators to consider the needs and wishes of each of the four main user groups in the Data Lifeboat ecosystem:</p> <ol> <li>Flickr Members</li> <li>Data Lifeboats Creators</li> <li>Safe Harbor Dock Operators</li> <li>Subjects in the Photo</li> </ol> <p>While we do not yet know precisely what form the README will take, we hope our iterative design process can offer flexibility to accommodate the needs of—and our responsibilities to—Data Lifeboat creators, photographic subjects and communities, and future viewers.</p> <p>In our Mellon-funded <a href="https://www.flickr.org/our-data-lifeboat-workshops-are-complete/">Data Lifeboat workshops</a> in October and November, we asked our participants to support us in co-designing a digital collecting tool with care in mind. We asked:</p> <blockquote><p><em>What prompts or questions for Data Lifeboat creators could we include in the README to help them think about C.A.R.E. or F.A.I.R. principles. Try to map each question to a letter.</em></p></blockquote> <p>The results of this exercise and what this means for Data Lifeboat development will be detailed in <a href="https://www.flickr.org/from-desiderata-to-readmes-the-case-for-a-c-a-r-e-full-data-lifeboat-pt-ii/">Part 2.</a></p> <p> </p> <h6><em>The photographs in this blog post come from the Smithsonian Institution’s Thomas Smillie Collection (Record Unit 95) – Thomas Smillie served as the first official photographer for the Smithsonian Institution from 1870 until his death in 1917. As head of the photography lab as well as its curator, he was responsible for photographing all of the exhibits, objects, and expeditions, leaving an informal record of early Smithsonian collections.</em></h6> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class="copy copy-text color-transparent-bg"> <div class="grid-container"> <div class="grid-x align-center"> <div class="cell large-8"> <h3>Bibliography</h3> <p>Alkemade, Henk, et al. “Datasheets for Digital Cultural Heritage Datasets.” <i>Journal of Open Humanities Data</i>, vol. 9, 2023, doi:10.5334/johd.124.</p> <p>Arora, Payal. “Decolonizing Privacy Studies.” <i>Television & New Media</i>, vol. 20, no. 4, 26 Oct. 2018, pp. 366–378, doi:10.1177/1527476418806092.</p> <p>Baird, Spencer. “General Directions for Collecting and Preserving Objects of Natural History”, c. 1848, Dickinson College Archives & Special Collections</p> <p>Benjamin, Ruha. <em>Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code. </em>Polity, 2019.</p> <p>Boast, Robin, et al. “Return to Babel: Emergent Diversity, Digital Resources, and Local Knowledge.” <i>The Information Society</i>, vol. 23, no. 5, 27 Sept. 2007, pp. 395–403, doi:10.1080/01972240701575635.</p> <p>Boden, Gertrud. “Whose Information? 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University of British Columbia Press, 2022.</p> </div> </div> </div> </section><p>The post <a href="https://www.flickr.org/from-desiderata-to-readmes-pt1/">From Desiderata to READMEs: The case for a C.A.R.E.-full Data Lifeboat Pt. I</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.flickr.org">Flickr Foundation</a>.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">8350</post-id> <media:thumbnail url="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/4586899557_8ece48c457_o.jpg" /> <media:content url="https://www.flickr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/12/4586899557_8ece48c457_o.jpg" medium="image"> <media:title type="html">Hericium coralloides mushroom specimens, The Field Museum Library</media:title> </media:content> </item> </channel> </rss>