How to create a new digital library on ALN

There are several way to create a library and share data with ALN. Here are some!

Depending on your tech skills, you may want to take a look also at this general manual.

Amusewiki: the best compatibility for full editable and printable text

The advantages

Amusewiki is the natural twin of ALN. The best accuracy is achieved because the two softwares are thought and developed together.

How to

We can provide hosting and support for new anarchist libraries using Amusewiki under the anarchistlibraries.net domain.

To start one, please send a mail to: hosting [at] anarchistlibraries [dot] network.

1. Provide a logo, 300x80 pixels, to be used in the header, and a square image 300x300, to be embeeded in the PDFs.

2. Uploading texts is different than uploading PDFs. The interface provides you a way to copy/paste the texts from HTML, txt and Word documents and adapt it using the markup language muse, which is very easy to learn. Contextual help and an extensive manual is provided.

3. If you don't have it yet, buy a domain. It's very cheap (around 10-15 EUR yearly) and guarantees that you decide what to do with your site, without asking anyone. In the meanwhile, you can have a subdomain of anarchistlibraries.net.

Once the library is setup, you are going to be pinged only occasionally and if needed.

Depending on your tech skills, you may want to take a look at amusewiki.org.

Notably:

• The markup manual, required

• Offline tools if you prefer to work offline

• Mirroring and backing up

If you need a new language for your library

You first need to translate the software that the library runs.

1. Install Poedit.

2. Go to https://github.com/melmothx/amusewiki/tags and download the latest. Unpack the archive and find the .po file with your language code in the lib/AmuseWikiFarm/I18N directory.

3. Open the .po file with Poedit. Add the translations. Please preserve the %1, %2, in the message. They are placeholders for dynamic content. Save (of course). Send the .po file to hosting [at] anarchistlibraries [dot] network

Please note: you don't have to translate everything. If something doesn't make any sense to you, leave it alone. Some things are admin-only. Be sure to translate the most obvious ones, though.

Large PDF archives

Amusewiki is not taylored for managing this kind of file, so it's better use a different aproach. You can also use both, Amusewiki for the editable texts and an other system for PDF or bibliographical references only.

How to

Feel free to reach out to us at: hosting [at] anarchistlibraries [dot] network to find the best solution for your case, maybe through a third party software.

Collections of bibliographical references

Amusewiki is not taylored for managing this kind of informations, so it's better use a different aproach.

How to

The easyest (but not the only) way is to use a CSV. Feel free to reach out to us at: hosting [at] anarchistlibraries [dot] network to find the best solution for your case and helping you finding the best optimization of your existing CSV or your third party software.