Pilot demo
This app is a pilot designed to showcase how a decentralised digital archive could work in practice. The goal is to explore ways for individuals and local organisations to contribute and share their own materials - documents, photographs, oral histories, and more - while keeping ownership and control over their contributions.
What the Pilot is
This pilot app is a working demonstration of how the NKSJA could use modern technology to create a decentralised, community-driven digital archive. Using the Solid framework, the app allows contributors to store their materials in individual “Pods,” which can then be linked to form a cohesive archive.
- Show how decentralised digital storage works in practice.
- Test tools for contributing, managing, and sharing archival materials.
- Provide a model for how the NKSJA could be implemented on a larger scale.
Decentralised Technology & the Solid Project
Decentralised technology is a way of storing and managing data where control is distributed, rather than held by a single central organisation. This ensures that contributors retain ownership of their own information and that the archive is not reliant on a single platform or provider.
The Solid Project, developed by Tim Berners-Lee, provides the framework for this type of technology. In the Solid ecosystem, each contributor hosts their own Pod - a secure storage space for their data. These Pods can be linked together to create a collective archive while maintaining individual control and privacy.
Why Use Solid
- Ownership and Control: Contributors decide who can access their materials and how they are used.
- Interoperability: Materials stored in different Pods can be connected and referenced across the archive.
- Community-Driven: The archive is shaped by the people of North Kensington, not by a central authority.
- Longevity: Decentralised storage reduces dependency on a single platform, making the archive more resilient over time.
- Trusted stewardship: Archive material can still be deposited with, and remain under the care and management of, the NKSJA.
- Guided self-hosting: Archivists can support contributors in familiarising themselves with self-hosting, giving users early experience of what is hoped to be the future of the web.
- Exploring new approaches: By adopting Solid, the NKSJA would be taking an early step into a new layer of the web, showing openness to innovation in digital archiving.
Goal
The purpose of this demo app is to provide a working example of a decentralised, community-led archive. By using this pilot, we can demonstrate how the NKSJA could function in practice, while addressing concerns around ownership, accessibility, and preservation.
Ultimately, this pilot serves as a proposal for a full-scale North Kensington Social Justice Archive, showing how technology can support a vibrant, inclusive, and locally-led digital history.