Last spring, we reported the news that Patrick Murray-John has been accepted to the NEH Summer Institute, “One Week, One Tool.” We’re pleased to now announce the launch of Anthologize, a new WordPress plugin that Patrick and 12 other institute participants built during one week in July at the Center for New Media and History.
Anthologize allows WordPress users to easily build electronic books out of existing content on their blogs. Through an easy Web interface, it is possible to choose book components from your WordPress site, craft them into sections or chapters, and export the entire thing into a variety of electronic formats.
Initial production of the tool was completed in one week with assistance and advice from CHNM staffers. In fact, upon arriving at the institute participants didn’t even know what tool they would be building. After an intense two days of orientation and brainstorming, the idea for Anthologize was born. Five days later, by working around the clock, the group had produced the first version of the new plugin.
Patrick’s particular role on the team was “format wrangler,” focusing his efforts on creating a data structure to serve as a bridge between the information stored within WordPress and the various output formats. Currently, PDF, ePub (for mobile devices), and basic RTF formats are available, but more will become available in the future. Since launching, the team has continued development, launching an update within two weeks of completing the Institute. The plugin has been downloaded nearly 3000 times so far.
You can read more about the project by visiting the Anthologize Zotero group, where team members have been collecting articles, videos, and other resources about the new tool. Patrick will also be writing about possible uses for teaching and learning at Anthologize @ UMW. And, of course, those thoughts will also be published in PDF and ePub formats.
Anthologize has also been installed on UMW Blogs, where any user can activate it and try it out.
