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Dear area knowledge workers, Starting this month, the digital scholarship groups at Boston University <http://bu.edu/disc> and Boston College <https://ds.bc.edu/> are co-hosting a monthly informal gathering for people wishing to contribute to crowdsourced projects. We invite you to join us, once or a few times or regularly, from wherever you like. We're calling this Crowd Cafe <https://is.gd/crowdcafe>. We will provide in-person and online hosting, camaraderie, and light direction help as needed. You, we hope, will provide human power for projects of your choosing. What crowdsourced projects? Any projects you like. Wikipedia editing, historical document transcription, annotation of satellite images to aid in disaster relief efforts. We've made a list of projects seeking help — there are many — and are adding to it; see link below. Who can participate? Anyone with a reasonably recent laptop or desktop computer (tablets and phones tend to be pretty painful to use for these projects), an internet connection, and some time. Barriers to entry vary, but are generally pretty low. We'll help you get started if you like. Often, no specialized expertise is required; there are projects to which middle and high schoolers could meaningfully contribute. Other projects benefit from more experience, whether it be the ability to read 19th century American handwriting and decipher common abbreviations, or expertise in a field of research relevant to a Wikipedia article. This means that, even if this isn't your thing, please help us spread the word by telling your friends, colleagues, and students about it. When is this happening, and how do I join? Crowd Cafe will take place on the third Friday of every month, 1-3pm US Eastern time. Our first gathering will be on Friday, August 17th. You may join us: * in person — current hosts include BU and BC; * via a Zoom meeting; * on Twitter via the #crowdcafe hashtag More information, including rationale, locations, and a list of crowdsourced projects, is at https://is.gd/crowdcafe. We hope to see you there! -Sarah Melton (BC) and Vika Zafrin (BU) (This announcement is being sent to multiple lists.) -- Dr. Vika Zafrin Digital Scholarship Librarian Boston University +1 617.358.6370 | bu.edu/disc ######################################################################## To unsubscribe from the BOSTONDH list, click the following link: https://listserv.neu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=BOSTONDH