Jingyi Li creates AO3 Scraper
BCNM undergrad Jingyi Li and a friend built a data scraper for the fan-content archive, Archive of Our Own. They built the Python scraper as part of their independent project for Gail DeKosnik's Making Sense of Cultural Data class. They plan to use the data they get from AO3 in their projects.
Archive of Our Own is a project of The Organization for Transformative Works. OTW is a nonprofit organization, established by fans in 2007, to serve the interests of fans by providing access to and preserving the history of fanworks and fan culture in its myriad forms. They believe that fanworks are transformative and that transformative works are legitimate. They are proactive and innovative in protecting and defending our work from commercial exploitation and legal challenge. They preserve the fannish economy, values, and creative expression by protecting and nurturing fellow fans, work, commentary, history, and identity while providing the broadest possible access to fannish activity for all fans.
The Archive of Our Own offers a noncommercial and nonprofit central hosting place for fanworks using open-source archiving software.
Exciting! We look forward to more.
You can access the scraper on GitHub here.