April’s JHOVE hack day was another great success covering a range of development and non-development tasks; issues and pull requests were closed, sample files were found, user documentation was reviewed, and our knowledge on JHOVE errors was expanded upon. We don’t want the great work achieved this day to stop there though! There’s still plenty that needs to be, and can be, done before our next hack day.

But we need your help! So if you’re a digital archivist with digital files to test, a developer in need of a challenge, someone struggling to use JHOVE, or just someone with a keen eye for punctuation, we want to hear from you.

We have several aims we’re working to achieve. Firstly, we want to make sure JHOVE is robust and the validation results accurate through improved testing. We also want to make sure that the validation results are clear and understandable and that we know what errors are important for long term preservation. Finally, we want to make JHOVE friendlier for first time users through enhanced documentation.

So how can you help move things along? Carl’s post alluded to a few ways in which you could contribute:

• Help finish writing the JHOVE beginner’s guide, agreeing a structure and proofreading the text before publication.
• Contribute real-world use cases that demonstrate how JHOVE can be used, e.g. examples of your validation workflows – you could also use this form to send us your examples.
• Identify and send us shareable sample files (PDFs, WAVs, etc.) to test JHOVE development with.
• Add explanations on JHOVE error messages or notes on the preservation impact of particular errors.
• Work on open issues, not all of which require you to be a developer – for example, looking for external reference information.

Whether you’re a developer or not, if you can spare some time to work on these – perhaps trying to find sample files or reviewing documentation – then we want to hear from you. Don’t worry if you’ve never been involved in the hack days before, just drop myself or Carl a line and we’ll get you started.

Finally, if you want to support JHOVE improvements but cannot commit to any of the above, you can always show your support through a financial donation.

Together we can make JHOVE reliable, easy to understand and transparent for everyone. Together we can make JHOVE awesome!