George Oates Explained

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George Oates (birth name Georgina Oates, born 1973) is an Australian-born designer and entrepreneur, best known for being the first designer of the photo-sharing website Flickr and for creating the Flickr Commons program. Since 2007 she has worked in the cultural heritage sector and is regarded as "increasingly a go-to expert on digital archives".[1] She has also written a book called "If Only The Grimms Had Known Alice", a retelling of the Grimm brothers' fairy tales to include female characters.[2]

Early life

Oates was born in Adelaide, Australia, to an Australian father and a British mother, and is the youngest of three siblings.

Career

In 1996, Oates was in the first group of employees at the Ngapartji Multimedia Centre in Adelaide, where she taught the general public how to use the internet and went on to teach courses in HTML and web design. After working in the web industry there for the next seven years, she left Australia in 2003 to start work at Ludicorp,[3] the company that went on to make Flickr. After four years responsible for Flickr's design, Oates invented the Flickr Commons program,[4] [5] [6] designed to make public photography collections available on Flickr with no known copyright restrictions. The first partner for the program was the Library of Congress, and it launched in January 2008.[7] Oates was laid off by Yahoo at the end of 2008.[8]

In 2009, she started work as director of the Open Library project at the Internet Archive.[9] [10] In her time there she also designed new interfaces for the Book Reader, the Wayback Machine, and the 9/11 Archive.

From 2011 to 2014, Oates was art director at San Francisco data visualization studio Stamen Design. While in San Francisco, she was a judge for the 2013 Information is Beautiful Awards.[11]

In 2014 she launched her own company called Good, Form & Spectacle, which has completed projects for institutions like The British Museum, The Victoria and Albert Museum and Wellcome Library.

Oates has spoken publicly about her work around the world since 2005, including at keynote speeches at Smithsonian 2.0,[12] OCLC Futurecast,[13] and Europeana Tech 2015,[14] and is a public advocate for open cultural data and content.

Oates returned to Flickr Commons in 2021, with a plan to revitalize the program.[15]

Appointments and honours

In 2011, Oates was appointed a Research Associate at Smithsonian Libraries.[16] She is also a non-executive director of Postal Heritage Services, a subsidiary of The Postal Museum, and is on the advisory board of the British Library Labs initiative, a Mellon Foundation-funded program to increase access to the library's collections.

Bibliography

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Johnson. Bobbie. Inside the Wayback Machine with George Oates. GigaOm. 21 February 2016. 14 April 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190414162215/https://gigaom.com/2011/01/26/inside-the-wayback-machine-with-george-oates/. dead.
  2. Web site: First speakers announced for The Story – Kati London, Philip Hunt and George Oates . February 22, 2016 . mattlocke . November 21, 2014 . The Story . English .
  3. Web site: The Ludicorp Team . Ludicorp . 21 February 2016 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20050331042928/http://www.ludicorp.com/the_team.php . March 31, 2005 .
  4. Web site: Flickr Celebrates Commons' 5th Birthday with Galleries of Most Popular Photos . February 22, 2016 . Michael Zhang . January 16, 2013 . PetaPixel . English .
  5. Web site: With Flickr Layoffs, Whither 'The Commons'? . February 25, 2016 . Ryan Singel . December 30, 2008 . Wired . English .
  6. Web site: Flickr, Library of Congress find something in 'Common' . February 25, 2016 . Rebecca Kaplan . July 30, 2008 . USA Today . English .
  7. Web site: Oates. George. Many hands make light work. Flickr Blog. 16 January 2008 . 21 February 2016.
  8. News: Johnson. Bobbie. Now Flickr is hit by Yahoo layoffs. 21 February 2016. The Guardian. 11 December 2008.
  9. News: Johnson. Bobbie. The library that never closes. 21 February 2016. The Guardian. 1 July 2009.
  10. Web site: All the world's books to go online . February 25, 2016 . Heidi Blake . July 2, 2009 . The Telegraph . English .
  11. Web site: Steven. Rachael. Information is Beautiful Awards winners 2013. CreativeReview. 21 February 2016. 21 November 2013.
  12. News: Garreau. Joel. Smithsonian Confronts the Digital Age. 21 February 2016. Washington Post. 26 January 2009.
  13. Web site: Proffitt. Merrilee. Back to the FutureCast: changing patterns of data production and consumption. OCLC Research. 28 June 2011 . 21 February 2016.
  14. Web site: Europeana Tech 2015. Europeana.
  15. https://blog.flickr.net/en/2021/03/23/george-oates-returns-to-revitalize-the-flickr-commons/ Blog Flickr, 23 March 2021
  16. Web site: Smithsonian Digital Library. George Oates appointed Research Associate at Smithsonian Libraries. Smithsonian Libraries Blog. 21 February 2016. 7 January 2011.