Contribute to Our Project

We are currently working on producing the first complete edition of this resource for launch at the LIBER Winter Event 2024 in November 26-27 2024. Topic Guides are currently being produced through a series of in-person and online writing sprints of LIBER working group members and by direct invitation. When complete, the first edition will be deposited in the British Library Research Repository, captured in the UK Web Archive, and a DOI provided for both the overall resources and individual guides.

The first edition Topic Guide wishlist draws heavily on the existing skills framework and topics covered in the British Library’s Digital Scholarship Training Programme, as well as those recommended by attendees of development workshops hosted by LIBER working groups throughout 2023/2024.

Feel free to contact Nora McGregor if you’re keen to learn more and contribute!

Ways to contribute to this project

  • Contribute to an existing, or create a new Topic Guide (individually or in collaboration with others). Choose from our existing wishlist or propose a new one. Join an upcoming writing sprint or get in touch with us directly to discuss digitalresearch@bl.uk your idea and we’ll help you get started right away!

NOTE: Topic Guides we are seeking authors for right now include:

  • Automatic Text Transcription (OCR/HTR)
  • Demystifying Computational Environments for Digital Scholarship
  • Climate Change and Sustainability
  • Cultural Competency & Ethics in Digital Methods
  • Digital Scholarship/Data Science Project Management, Evaluation and Impact Assessment
  • Foundation models: When and why to use LLMs or SLMs
  • What is an API?

Join a Writing Sprint!

Our first Topic Guide Sprints were held online Tuesday 14 May 2024 and another Tuesday 03 June 2024. To be notified of upcoming sprints check back here for dates/times or join one of our working groups and we’ll email out the details!

Our next online writing sprints will be held via Microsoft Teams:

  • Tuesday, 8 October 2024 9:00-11:00 (BST)
  • Tuesday, 5 November 2024 9:00-11:00 (BST)

Register today!

Preparing for a sprint:

  1. Please have a quick read through the Welcome and Topic Guide pages to familiarise yourself with this resource and its purpose.
  2. When you Register you’ll see a list of our latest Topic Guides on our wishlist. Please check off any and all Topic Guides you would be happy to work on during the day of the sprint. On the day each attendee will focus on writing just one Topic Guide however. The information you provide before the sprint will help us organise this ahead of time so that as many Topic Guides as possible have at least one dedicated author.
  3. Please have a quick read through the Author Guidance and Style Guide section.
  4. We’ll be in touch after we receive your registration to send you more details and useful information ahead of the sprint so look out for our email! If you are sent a copy of the Topic Guide Template (Google Doc) that corresponds to your topic of choice ahead of time, add your name to the header, and feel free to add notes or even make a start on drafting your guide before the sprint day if you’re keen!

What to expect on the day:

A two hour writing sprint will generally follow this format:

  1. Welcome and participant introductions (10 minutes)
  2. Overview of the project & explanation of how the day will run (15 minutes)
  3. Allocation and confirmation of individual Topic Guide Authorship for the day (15 minutes): As a group we’ll go over the wishlist and all participants will be given access to their particular Topic Guide google doc template they’ll be using during and after the sprint.
  4. Writing Phase (60 minutes): You’ll have an hour to begin writing your respective guide in your Google Doc template. If more than one participant are working together on a topic we can provide breakout rooms so that you can discuss amongst yourselves how to break up the work, and share ideas as you go along. You can have your camera/mic on or off during this time and co-chairs will be on hand to answer any questions or give advice on topics.
  5. Wrapping Up & Logging progress through Github Issues (15 minutes): We have provided an Issue Template which is pre-formatted as a Topic Guide submission checklist and will walk participants through the process of opening a new issue for your draft submission. Please fill in the issue template and provide the necessary information relating to where your draft submission is currently at. Once the issue is saved, it can continue to serve as a space to continue discussion of the ongoing status of your submission and log updates where necessary, including notifying us of when it is fully ready for final review by maintainers.
  6. Closing Remarks & Next Steps (5 minutes)

After the sprint:

During the sprint, you’ve drafted your Topic Guide in a Google Doc. This Google Doc can continue to serve as a ‘living document’ following the sprint until you feel the content is ready to be published. Throughout this process, we will use your Github issue to maintain an overview of the docs in terms of their status and action points so please keep this updated. Each Topic Guide will be allocated a specific Maintainer contact (one of the co-chairs) who will be in touch and work with you to see the process through to completion. You may request placing your Google Doc under restricted access if you wish. We will not do this by default, but we respect that some contributors would like to keep drafts private until fully ready for submission.

When your Topic Guide is ready for our review in Google Docs, please let us know by logging an update over on Github as a comment on the Issue stating this. You can also tag the maintainers so they receive a notification as well. Maintainers will generally work with you on the final edits necessary for the submission through track changes and comments within the Google Doc itself. Once these have all been resolved maintainers will log a status update in the GitHub issue.

Ongoing Maintenance and Review

We view this resource as capturing a snapshot in time and will endeavour to fully review all content a minimum of once annually to check for link rot, and content relevancy. The project team editors are committed to make quick fixes when raised throughout the year, while formal sprints and reviews coinciding with LIBER Annual Summer Conference and Winter events will be used for soliciting new content and undertaking more complex updates to the resource each year and creating new editions as necessary.

Join one of the LIBER Working Groups Digital Scholarship and Digital Cultural Heritage WG or Data Science in Libraries (open to all staff of LIBER member institutions) to keep up with the developments and ongoing maintenance of this project!