Co-creating Flickr Foundation’s 100-year plan, researchers at the Oxford Internet Institute (OII) developed a one-day workshop to establish principles for designing infrastructure that can preserve Flickr’s digital photographic collection of tens of billions images for the next 100 years.

Digital archives and artefacts are invaluable cultural assets. Without adequate preservation, they risk becoming lost, corrupted, or inaccessible over time. For Flickr, an online photo and video-sharing platform, there is a pressing need to develop new ways to preserve its unique collections. These span everything from family photographs to images documenting internationally significant events. In collaboration with partners across the globe, the Flickr Foundation is co-creating a 100-year plan to ensure its collection remains accessible and intact for several generations.

Hosted at the OII, the Oxford workshop brought together a diverse set of voices with 18 attendees from across the academic, arts and heritage sectors. The event was led by Flickr Foundation Co-Founder George Oates alongside Associate Professor and Senior Research Fellow, Dr Kathryn Eccles, Oxford Internet Institute and two doctoral researchers from the department, Amanda Curtis and Fattori McKenna. Using a flexible co-design methodology, the workshop enabled a rapid, iterative process of idea generation. The group considered the big questions and challenges facing Flickr, such as who will maintain the archive, and how it can be future-proofed as technology evolves. The group explored several potential solutions by applying their academic knowledge and insights in ways that uphold the cultural, social and environmental ethics of digital storage.

In addition to arriving at valuable insights in partnership with the Flickr Foundation, helping to craft its century-long plan, the workshop developed a set of shared principles and strategies to enhance the accessibility and usability of digital archives in the long term. Collaborations with Flickr.org continue, including a work placement where Fattori McKenna is leading research on Flickr’s Data Lifeboat project.

The initiative was funded through the University of Oxford Social Sciences Business Engagement Seed Fund.  Applications for the next round of funding close 16 January 2025.  Find out more and apply to the Social Science Business Engagement Seed Fund.