Tropy

{{Short description|Desktop application for research photo management}}

{{Infobox software

| name = Tropy

| logo = Tropy-icon-small.svg

| logo_size =

| developer = Center for History and New Media at George Mason University

| released = {{Start date and age|2017|05|09}}{{cite web

| url = https://tropy.org/blog/first-beta-for-tropy/

| title = First beta for Tropy

| date = 9 May 2017

| work = tropy.org

}}

| latest_release_version = 1.5.4

| latest_release_date = {{Start date and age|2019|08|23}}{{cite web

| url = https://tropy.org/blog/tropy-1-0-released/

| title = Tropy 1.0 released

| date = 24 October 2017

| work = tropy.org

}}

| programming language = JavaScript with SQLite backend

| operating system = Windows, macOS, Linux{{cite web

| title = Download

| url = https://tropy.org

| work = tropy.org

| publisher = Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media

| accessdate = 14 August 2018

}}

| platform = {{Plainlist|

IA-32, x64}}

| genre = Reference management

| license = AGPL{{cite web

| url = https://github.com/tropy/tropy/blob/master/LICENSE

| title = Licensing [Tropy Documentation]

| date = 14 August 2018

| work = tropy.org

}}

| website = {{URL|http://www.tropy.org/}}

}}

Tropy is a free and open-source desktop knowledge organization application that helps users manage and describe photographs of research materials. It was developed by the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. Photos imported into Tropy can be combined into single items, described with metadata that is applied in bulk{{cite web

| last1 = McKenzie

| first1 = David

| title = Guest Post: Using Tropy to Collect and Process Images

| url = https://tropy.org/blog/guest-post-using-tropy-to-collect-and-process-images/

| website = Tropy.org

| publisher = Tropy.org

}} or created with custom metadata templates,{{cite web

| last1 = Mullen

| first1 = Abby

| title = Using Tropy with Newspapers

| url = https://tropy.org/blog/using-tropy-with-newspapers/

| website = Tropy.org

| accessdate = August 14, 2018

}} annotated with research notes, and tagged in accordance with a researcher's preferred mode of organization.

Tropy acknowledges the ways in which that "digital photography and less-restrictive archival policies on digital reproduction for personal use" have transformed the ways that archives and their communities of users conduct research.{{Cite web|url=https://www.ianmilligan.ca/talk/aha-2020/|title=Becoming a Desk(top) Profession: Digital Photography and the Changing Landscape of Archival Research|last=Milligan|first=Ian|date=2019-11-10|website=Ian Milligan|language=en-us|access-date=2020-01-07}} Workshops on Tropy have been held by libraries at Brown University,{{Cite web|url=https://blogs.brown.edu/libnews/tropy/|title=New Workshop {{!}} Research Photo Management with Tropy {{!}} Brown University Library News|last=Braga|first=Jennifer|language=en-US|access-date=2020-01-07}} Yale University,{{Cite web|url=https://web.library.yale.edu/dhlab/tropyfall17|title=Manage Research Photos with Tropy {{!}} Yale University Library|website=web.library.yale.edu|access-date=2020-01-07}} Northeastern University,{{Cite web|url=https://northeastern.libcal.com/event/4657814|title=Tropy: Research Photo Management for Librarians and Archivists|website=Library Calendar|language=en|access-date=2020-01-07}} and The University of Texas at Austin.{{Cite web|url=https://www.lib.utexas.edu/events/312|title=Organizing Images with Tropy {{!}} University of Texas Libraries {{!}} The University of Texas at Austin|website=www.lib.utexas.edu|access-date=2020-01-07}}

Features

Tropy does not seek to be photo editing software, a citation manager, a writing platform, or an online exhibit platform. Tropy seeks to address the challenges of the now-common experience of researchers photographing objects in archives.{{cite web

| last1 = Jackson

| first1 = Zoë

| title = Research Clutter: A New App Helps Create Order Out of Disorder

| url = https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/april-2018/research-clutter-a-new-app-helps-create-order-out-of-disorder

| website = Perspectives

| publisher = American Historical Association

| accessdate = August 14, 2018

}} Tropy allows users to group a collection of photos into a single document, apply multiple tags to photos to allow for organization, and provide annotations and notes to individual items and groups of items. Material in Tropy can also be exported to JSON-LD{{cite web

| title = Export from Tropy

| url = https://docs.tropy.org/export.html

| website = Tropy.org

| publisher = Tropy.org

| accessdate = 15 August 2018

}} and Omeka{{cite web

| title = Export to Omeka S

| url = https://docs.tropy.org/omeka.html

| website = Tropy.org

| publisher = Tropy.org

| accessdate = 15 August 2018

}} to allow collaboration with others.

Items are organized through a drag-and-drop interface, and can search the users' collections.

Currently, the platform accepts JPEG, PNG, SVG, AVIF, GIF, HEIC, JP2, PDF, TIF, WEBP file formats.{{cite web

| title = Tropy.org

| url = https://tropy.org/

| website = Tropy.org

| publisher = Tropy.org

| accessdate = 14 July 2021

}}

Financial support

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation funded Tropy's development.{{cite web

| last1 = Jackson

| first1 = Zoë

| title = Research Clutter: A New App Helps Create Order Out of Disorder

| url = https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/april-2018/research-clutter-a-new-app-helps-create-order-out-of-disorder

| website = Perspectives

| publisher = American Historical Association

| accessdate = August 14, 2018

}} Tropy's public released happened in October 2017.{{cite web

| url = https://tropy.org/blog/tropy-1-0-released/

| title = Tropy 1.0 released

| date = 24 October 2017

| work = tropy.org

}} As of 2021, it is maintained by the Corporation for Digital Scholarship.