On: British Library has released over a million images onto Flickr Commons

[parfe]

How would a nonprofit service be any more insulted from shutting down some day? They made the data available. You could personally choose to re-host it using an endowment to fund it for a century. They're happy seeing it immediately and reliably accessible.

[_delirium → parfe]

I generally trust the long-term stability/accessibility of libraries and archives more than I do something like Flickr. Even if it's not shut down, Flickr could well limit API access or do any number of other things.

IMO the U.S. Library of Congress does it right. They do actually have a Flickr page, for people who prefer that interface: http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/sets/

But there is also the canonical digital archive at: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/