Open Scriptures

I have noticed in the Open community that we lack efficient communication and project visibility. Maybe communication is just difficult to begin with, and I bet we do better than purely proprietary top-secret enterprises. But in any case I’ve made the mistake in the past of setting out in isolation to work on some exciting, worthwhile project, but once I stopped and looked around at the community, I’d likely find others around me who are actively working on or who have already completed the very thing I wanted to do! Just think how much more could be done if instead of independently working on parallel projects we came alongside each other to consolidate efforts. In order for this to happen, we have to be able to know what each other is doing, and this is why we have recently launched the Open Scriptures Directory, which seeks to comprehensively list open projects involving scriptural data.

In addition to the Directory, the Google Group is also serving as a way for people to collaborate. This week there has been an active thread discussing collaboration on Strong’s Dictionary data. David Troidl expressed the general sentiments well:

The idea of collaboration is great. I’ve already mentioned to Darrell that just the moral support is heartening. It’s nice to know, after all this time working alone, that there really are others out there who share the same interest. […] I’ve been on my own all this time

I think it is essential to seek out others who are interested in the same things so that we can come together not only to build upon what each other has done, but to consolidate what we are doing as much as possible so that both duplicate efforts and fragmented data can be avoided. Not only will this lead to more productivity, but it will also serve to build community among those who share a common vision for open scriptural resources.

If you have a project that is not yet listed in the directory, please suggest the link. Please also join the Google Group!