Tropy

Tropy
Developer(s)Center for History and New Media at George Mason University
Initial releaseMay 9, 2017; 7 years ago (2017-05-09)[1]
Stable release
1.5.4 / August 23, 2019; 5 years ago (2019-08-23)[2]
Repository
Written inJavaScript with SQLite backend
Operating systemWindows, macOS, Linux[3]
Platform
TypeReference management
LicenseAGPL[4]
Websitewww.tropy.org

Tropy is a free and open-source desktop knowledge organization application that helps users manage and describe photographs of research materials. It was developed by the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. Photos imported into Tropy can be combined into single items, described with metadata that is applied in bulk[5] or created with custom metadata templates,[6] annotated with research notes, and tagged in accordance with a researcher's preferred mode of organization.

Tropy acknowledges the ways in which that "digital photography and less-restrictive archival policies on digital reproduction for personal use" have transformed the ways that archives and their communities of users conduct research.[7] Workshops on Tropy have been held by libraries at Brown University,[8] Yale University,[9] Northeastern University,[10] and The University of Texas at Austin.[11]

Features

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Tropy does not seek to be photo editing software, a citation manager, a writing platform, or an online exhibit platform. Tropy seeks to address the challenges of the now-common experience of researchers photographing objects in archives.[12] Tropy allows users to group a collection of photos into a single document, apply multiple tags to photos to allow for organization, and provide annotations and notes to individual items and groups of items. Material in Tropy can also be exported to JSON-LD[13] and Omeka[14] to allow collaboration with others.

Items are organized through a drag-and-drop interface, and can search the users' collections.

Currently, the platform accepts JPEG, PNG, SVG, AVIF, GIF, HEIC, JP2, PDF, TIF, WEBP file formats.[15]

Financial support

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The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation funded Tropy's development.[16] Tropy's public released happened in October 2017.[17] As of 2021, it is maintained by the Corporation for Digital Scholarship.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "First beta for Tropy". tropy.org. 9 May 2017.
  2. ^ "Tropy 1.0 released". tropy.org. 24 October 2017.
  3. ^ "Download". tropy.org. Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media. Retrieved 14 August 2018.
  4. ^ "Licensing [Tropy Documentation]". tropy.org. 14 August 2018.
  5. ^ McKenzie, David. "Guest Post: Using Tropy to Collect and Process Images". Tropy.org. Tropy.org.
  6. ^ Mullen, Abby. "Using Tropy with Newspapers". Tropy.org. Retrieved August 14, 2018.
  7. ^ Milligan, Ian (2019-11-10). "Becoming a Desk(top) Profession: Digital Photography and the Changing Landscape of Archival Research". Ian Milligan. Retrieved 2020-01-07.
  8. ^ Braga, Jennifer. "New Workshop | Research Photo Management with Tropy | Brown University Library News". Retrieved 2020-01-07.
  9. ^ "Manage Research Photos with Tropy | Yale University Library". web.library.yale.edu. Retrieved 2020-01-07.
  10. ^ "Tropy: Research Photo Management for Librarians and Archivists". Library Calendar. Retrieved 2020-01-07.
  11. ^ "Organizing Images with Tropy | University of Texas Libraries | The University of Texas at Austin". www.lib.utexas.edu. Retrieved 2020-01-07.
  12. ^ Jackson, Zoë. "Research Clutter: A New App Helps Create Order Out of Disorder". Perspectives. American Historical Association. Retrieved August 14, 2018.
  13. ^ "Export from Tropy". Tropy.org. Tropy.org. Retrieved 15 August 2018.
  14. ^ "Export to Omeka S". Tropy.org. Tropy.org. Retrieved 15 August 2018.
  15. ^ "Tropy.org". Tropy.org. Tropy.org. Retrieved 14 July 2021.
  16. ^ Jackson, Zoë. "Research Clutter: A New App Helps Create Order Out of Disorder". Perspectives. American Historical Association. Retrieved August 14, 2018.
  17. ^ "Tropy 1.0 released". tropy.org. 24 October 2017.
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