{"id":3450,"date":"2014-11-18T16:34:11","date_gmt":"2014-11-18T16:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/drp\/?p=4231"},"modified":"2014-11-18T16:34:11","modified_gmt":"2014-11-18T16:34:11","slug":"contributing-in-code","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/2014\/11\/18\/contributing-in-code\/","title":{"rendered":"Contributing in code"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"University<\/a><\/p>\n

University of Iowa Libraries at GitHub.com<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

For librarians, particularly those in academic settings, an important part of the job is\u00a0contributing to the development of the profession; traditionally, this has included\u00a0tasks such as giving presentations\u00a0at conferences and\u00a0publishing articles in scholarly journals. But thanks to the evolving nature of our work and to innovations\u00a0on the part of our developers, the University of Iowa Libraries has become\u00a0active in a new area\u00a0of professional development: sharing code for re-use and adaptation by other institutions.<\/p>\n

When George Mason University’s Center for History and New Media launched\u00a0Scripto<\/a>, an\u00a0NEH-funded open-source tool for transcription crowdsourcing projects, we were eager to adopt it for DIY History<\/a>\u00a0to replace\u00a0our existing makeshift and labor-intensive\u00a0system. Once it was installed, we became\u00a0even more\u00a0eager to make extensive changes to Scripto. While the tool\u00a0was designed to treat transcription as an add-in activity for digital exhibits, we needed\u00a0it\u00a0front and center for\u00a0DIY History.<\/p>\n

DRP\u2019s developers, Shawn Averkamp (now at New York Public Library) and Matthew Butler, solved this problem by adding new features to Scripto and creating a simple-to-use theme that focuses exclusively on the act of transcription. Other enhancements included a progress system for tracking completion status, as well as various scripts for migrating mass quantities of objects and metadata from our digital library to DIY History and back again. As it turned out, we weren\u2019t the only ones looking for these functionalities. In the open source spirit of sharing work for the good of the community, Shawn and Matthew made their enhancements and related code available online<\/a>, where it\u2019s been reused by a number of other institutions [see below].<\/p>\n

As we prepare to launch a redesigned and streamlined DIY History soon, we\u2019re grateful for the open source tools that have allowed us to make progress on our own project, and thrilled to have contributed to the development of crowdsourcing sites at other libraries and museums.<\/p>\n

\u201cDIY History and similar projects are about community\u201d says Matthew Butler, the Libraries\u2019 Multimedia Consultant. \u201cThey succeed because of the collaborative efforts of transcribers, developers, librarians, and curators to make the content and tools as accessible as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"DIY<\/a><\/p>\n

DIY History | University of Iowa Libraries<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

The Civil War in Letters | The Newberry Library<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"Making<\/a><\/p>\n

Making History | Library of Virginia<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"Jones'<\/a><\/p>\n

Jones’ Icones Online | University of Oxford<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"Virtual<\/a><\/p>\n

Virtual Volunteering | Carnamah Historical Society & Museum<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For librarians, particularly those in academic settings, an important part of the job is contributing to the development of the profession; traditionally, this has included tasks such as giving presentations at conferences and publishing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3450"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3450"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4030,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3450\/revisions\/4030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}