Volunteering @ Open Library

Welcome!

Open Library (openlibrary.org) is a non-profit, open source, digital public library, hosted by the Internet Archive, which lends millions of ebooks to millions of patrons each year. Open Library is made possible by volunteers, like you, from more than 8 different countries (US, NL, NZ, ES, IN, UK, DE, GR, CA). We believe everyone deserves a say in how their library serves our community. A library should be not only for, but of the people. Together, let's build the World's library.

If you're busy but still like to show your generosity and support our cause, consider sponsoring a book or making a tax-deductible donation.

How it Works

Open Library hosts an invite-only community chat room on Slack where book lovers and contributors can stay updated, ask questions, and collaborate towards improve OpenLibrary.org. Each week, Open Library also hosts an inclusive Community Call where members of the community may learn and participate in discussing the evolution of OpenLibrary.org.

To join our chat or participate in one of our weekly community calls, please "Choose Your Character" and click the relevant link to become involved. We're so excited to welcome you!

Opportunities

There are several ways to participate in Open Library.

1. Proceed to "Choose Your Character" to explore flexible volunteering opportunities
   
2. Submit interest in being chosen as an Open Library Fellow
   
3. Apply for a Google Summer of Code internship
   
4. Participate in Hacktoberfest (every October)

Choose Your Character

Want to get involved? First, lets choose your character: Which role best describes you?

Librarian

Open Library's book catalog has millions of books and thousands of data errors. Sometimes author names are misspelled, book covers are missing, or works and authors are duplicated or conflated. Librarians work together and communicate using our Slack chat channel to identify and fix data issues in our catalog. If you've ever been interested in programming scripts, Open Library's engineering team has written guides and created basic tools to empower librarians to start fixing common problems at scale. Your contributions will help patrons find the books they are looking for, ensure patrons receive accurate data, and that our engineering team has the right feedback to build thoughtful tools for librarians and our greater Open Library community. Learn more about librarianship at Open Library or browse our librarian resources.

Contribute as a Librarian

Communications & Outreach

As a library, we're excited about how we're making our resources discoverable and accessible to book lovers worldwide. If you're interested in joining our communications team, please let us know, and we'll be in touch!

Contribute on our Communications Team

Software Engineer

Want to write code that empowers million of book lovers to discover books they'll love? Each year scores of volunteers help fix bugs on OpenLibrary.org and architect new features and programs that reach thousands of patrons. For instance, the Reading Log has been used more than a million times by readers to track their reading progress!

Getting Started: If you're interested in getting started, try getting your developer environment set up and take a look at these good first issues.

Ask Questions Follow and join us on Github, Gitter, and our Slack; help improve the performance, reliability, and usefulness of the Open Library website; e.g. APIs, search engine, data models (python, web.py, infogami, solr, postgres):

Contribute as a Software Engineer

Designer & User Researcher

Does OpenLibrary.org look like it's from the the 90's? Help us fix that!

Contribute as a Designer

Accessibility Champion

We believe Open Library should be accessible to every patron, including those with print disabilities, and we need your help to ensure no one is left behind. Team up with Brian McNeilly, an accessibility expert with more than eight years of digital accessibility consulting experience, to help Open Library meet and exceed accessibility compliance across a variety of tests and considerations.

Why you'll love teaming up with Brian to help patrons access Open Library? Brian has presented at events nationwide including the National Forum on Principles of Accessibility and Inclusion for the Design of Library Systems hosted by MIT, the CSUN Assistive Technology Conference, and the Museums and the Web Conference. He has assisted hundreds of clients & helped develop web accessibility standards with the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium).

Help contribute code and expertise to help ensure the Open Library website is accessible to patrons with print disabilities:

Contribute as an Accessibility Champion

Translator

Help Open Library better serve an international audience and increase availability and accessibility across the globe by contributing as a translator. To learn more, please read our translator's wiki guide and check out this github issue.

Can you help us translate to Nepali? Please reach out! (Issue #1040)

Help new patrons use Open Library by translating the website into another language:

Contribute as a Translator

Beta Feedback

Want to help improve the design and usability of Open Library by giving us feedback and participating in short interviews and user studies? Volunteer with a member of our staff to participate in short 10 minute recorded video interviews of new features before they go live.

Contribute as a Beta participant