Basics of Tropy

Each semester, RRCHNM hosts a series of “Basics Of” sessions that teach the basics of an application, process, or methodology so our graduate students, affiliates, and faculty can get together and learn about that topic. These sessions are hosted by RRCHNM members who are resident experts on the selected topic.

This semester, our first session will be “Basics of Tropy” with Postdoctoral Research Fellow Douglas McRae. Read on to learn more about this session happening on Tuesday, January 31, 2023, from 1-2pm EST.

Basics of Tropy

Tropy is a digital tool that allows researchers to organize and describe photos of their research materials. Through its intuitive user interface, researchers can add metadata to images as well as combine, sort, annotate and export their projects. Tropy seeks to shorten the path from finding and photographing large amounts of archival material to analyzing and writing about them.

In this session, RRCHNM’s Douglas McRae will go over the basic features and uses of Tropy, including starting a new project, adding and editing photos, working with metadata templates, and the organization of items within a project. He will also briefly preview the most notable changes from the upcoming release: the “standard” and “advanced” project types, currently in beta testing. He will also briefly mention some more advanced functions, namely creating and exporting custom metadata templates and installing plugins. 

It is encouraged that attendees and particular first-time users download or update to the current release (1.12.0) on their laptops beforehand and (if possible) have some digitized sources or photos to practice working with Tropy during the session. Attendees can also just follow along if they prefer.