The Atlas of Digitised Newspapers and Metadata is the result of the two-year Oceanic Exchanges project. Now that the project has concluded, we are hoping that you, the GLAM, digital humanities and periodical studies community, will help develop and expand our initial work. In order to ensure consistency and robustness of the information, we ask that you contribute to the Atlas using the procedures listed below. We have three main avenues for contributors:
- Issues: Please post questions and comments you’d like to share with the community. We also invite you to answer and comment on other people’s contributions.
- Wiki: Do you have resources, information, links or other useful data that it not appropriate for the Atlas, or is not developed yet into a formal contribution? Please add it here.
- Changes to the Atlas, including corrections, context, adding new collections: Please see the guidance below.
Basic procedures
Whether you wish to make a simple or substantial contribution to the Atlas, we ask that you use the Github ‘pull request’ mechanism to do so. To make changes, clone our respository and make changes to your version of the website. Once you are happy with your changes, submit a pull request. We will then approve it, merging it with the current online Atlas, or send your comments to help improve or finalise the edits. All updates should be written in markdown rather than HTML, following GitHub’s guidelines.
Using the ‘pull request’ mechanic not only streamlines the process of contributing, but allows us to maintain a full provenance record of your contribution. If would like to discuss alternative methods for contributing to the Atlas, or want to discuss a possible addition informally, feel free to contact Melodee Beals or Emily Bell.
Please note that while we greatly appreciate, and will gladly accept, contributions from both database providers and end-users of all descriptions, we ask that you include references or other provenance information (such as your role within an organisation, if relying upon your experience) to the ‘pull request’ message, so that we can better evaluate claims before integrating them into the Atlas, and provide provenance information for those relying upon the Atlas in the future. This is especially the case for details regarding funding or governance.
File Structure
You can find the relevant pages of the Atlas under:
- Templates for new pages: The ‘_inprogress’ folder.
- Database histories: The ‘histories’ folder
- Metadata maps: The ‘maps’ folder
- Glossary entries: The ‘glossary’ folder
- All other pages: The ‘introduction’ folder
Substantial Edits
If you wish to make a substantial contribution to the project, such as a new page or updating multiple maps to include a new database, please visit Issues and create a new issue for your project. This will allow us to track your progress, provide you with advice, and allow other members of the community to support you. Once you have done this, follow the instructions below:
Integrating a New Database
Creating a New Database History: written guide, video
Mapping a New Database to the Atlas Ontology: written guide, video
Updating Existing Maps for a New Database
Creating New Atlas Entries
Adding Maps Video Guide
Creating a New Metadata Map for a New Category
Creating a New Glossary Entry for a New Category
Simple Edits
If you wish to make a minor change or update to an existing page, please follow the guidelines below, and then make a pull request to the Atlas repository.