Open-Source Software and Tools in digital community heritage initiatives

A curated list of open-source software and tools that have been used and/or developed within our selected community heritage initiatives:

• HebMorph enables effective Hebrew search. Click here for the latest available code.

• Historypin Metadata Crowsdourcing Tool, developed to power Historypin, allows the public to contribute suggestions about specific elements of metadata, including date, location, camera angle & direction, title, and tags. Content owners are notified of the suggestion, which can also be made public for further discourse; content owners can then approve the suggestion or send it back to the queue. Click here for the latest available code.

• Kronofoto digital archiving platform, developed for the Fortepan.us photo archive, allows digital files from multiple collections to be organized and displayed chronologically both in timeline and grid view. In separating content management from content access and delivery, the digital first platform advances virtual reunification. Click here for the latest available code.

• Local Contexts is a tool for creating Traditional Knowledge Labels for defining access and reuse within a community controlled framework, “grounding Indigenous rights.” The tool reinforces the safety and contextualization of a community’s cultural heritage within digital settings. Users will need to create an account and set up a “Hub” to access this tool.

• MediaWiki is the server-based wiki software that powers Wikipedia. As a multilingual, customizable softare, and scalable software MediaWiki helps users collect and organize knowledge and make it available to people. Click here to download MediaWiki.

• Omeka S is a web publishing platform that helps institutions choose from a variety of templates and connect their digital cultural heritage collections with other resources online, such as mapping tools and the Digital Public Archive of America. Omeka is the foundation for many cultural heritage projects worldwide. Click here to download Omeka S.

• Open Siddur Toolkit, developed by the Open Siddur project, is a collaborative publishing toolkit that enables users to “craft their own custom religious books, fostering creativity in religious culture”. In addition, they offer a single access point to download all pages, posts, authors and media on their website as an XML export file that is automatically updated. The latest code is available from Open Siddur’s github repository.

• Pattypan makes batch uploading to the Wikimedia Commons easier. Click here to access the Pattypan code on github.

• Rephotography is an application developed by the team behind the Ajapaik digital photo archive platform. It allows users to upload photographs matching the same perspective of historical photos. Click here to access the code on github.

• Sapelli facilitates data collection across language or literacy barriers through highly configurable icon-driven user interfaces. People can download the app from the Google Play store, or from Sapelli’s GitHub repository.

• Tainacan is a Wordpress theme and plugin for creating digital archives. The Tainacan theme is oriented towards museums, galleries, libraries; the corresponding plugin helps manage digital artifacts and share collections, manage vocabularies, and develop repositories and digital libraries. Click here to download both theme and plugin.

• Wax’s purpose is to help create flexible, digital exhibitions (such as scholarly, image-based exhibits) with minimal computing skills. Click here to access the code on github.

• Webrecorder assists in recording and accurately playing back interactive websites, and allows users to view this replay at any time through a link. To access the code on github, click here.

• Zooniverse enables citizen science projects and crowdsourcing (go here for more information). The Zooniverse github repository is here.