North Carolina State University released a new, open source tool that harvests Instagram images that use the hashtag #HuntLibrary. Initially created to collect images for a Library Journal supplement about Library by Design, the project evolved into a larger community building effort that resulted in more than 2500 images added to the collection.
“NCSU Libraries has now made the code for My #HuntLibrary project freely available on GitHub in the lentil Rails Engine framework. It enables the harvesting of image files and metadata from Instagram, and allows an administrator to moderate submissions and add items to a collection. Lentil also includes a tool that makes it easy to submit agreements to contributors when seeking permission to reuse their photos for additional promotional or research purposes, according to the announcement. Developers can use the code to customize and deploy lentil-based applications on any Ruby on Rails-capable server.”
dh + lib review
This post was produced through a cooperation between Christopher A. Miller, Jennifer Snider, Erin Elzi,and Chelcie Rowell (Editors-at-Large for the week), Caro Pinto (Editor for the week), and Roxanne Shirazi and Zach Coble (dh+lib Review Editors).