Add Blog Post: "Rerum Playground: Milestones and the Road Ahead"

blog/2024-12-02-rerum-playground.md

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+---
+title: Celebrating Milestones in the Rerum Playground Project
+description: A reflection on my experience as the tech lead for the **RERUM Playground** project.
+slug: blog_rerum_playground
+authors: [Lalith Adithya Reddy Avuthu]  
+tags: [open source, teamwork, project development, coding journey]  
+hide_table_of_contents: false
+---
+
+The Rerum Playground project under the Open Source with SLU program represents a collaborative effort to advance digital humanities by developing a suite of tools designed to enhance research accessibility and efficiency.
+
+<!--truncate-->
+
+## **Project Overview**
+
+The Rerum Playground is a toolkit for researchers in the digital humanities, focusing on intuitive tools that simplify handling web-based resources such as IIIF manifests. The project aligns with the Open Source with SLU program's mission to create innovative and community-driven software solutions. By leveraging open-source principles, Rerum Playground provides scalable and reusable components that foster collaboration across disciplines.
+
+### **Recent Developments**
+
+As the technical lead, I guided our team through several key milestones, including deploying the application on GitHub Pages for ease of access and transparency. Recent accomplishments include:
+
+- Enhancing user experience by introducing functionalities like "recently used tools" prioritization and robust error handling for invalid manifest links.
+- Implementing local storage for manifests, enabling researchers to efficiently revisit their work.
+
+Our commitment to iterative development and user feedback ensures Rerum Playground continues to evolve in response to academic needs.
+
+### **Collaborative Sprint Successes**
+
+The development journey was structured around agile methodologies, with regular sprint planning and retrospective sessions that emphasized collaboration and adaptability. Notable highlights include:
+
+- **Tool Selection Interface:** We introduced a streamlined UI for selecting tools, balancing simplicity with functionality.
+- **Metadata Display Enhancements:** Added clear and concise presentation of IIIF manifest metadata to improve user accessibility.
+- **Documentation Updates:** Comprehensive README updates to ensure contributors and end-users can easily navigate and engage with the project.
+
+### **Impact and Future Goals**
+
+The **Rerum Playground** team is focusing on expanding its user base, strengthening its community, and exploring new avenues for funding and collaboration. The next steps involve scaling the platform to Manifest Editor as well and saving the work to a database by using TinyNode, integrating more tools from external contributors, and continuing to improve the user experience based on feedback from researchers and educators.
+
+
+---
+
+### **Get Involved**
+
+The Rerum Playground repository on GitHub is open for contributions. We welcome academics, developers, and students to participate in shaping this exciting initiative. Together, we can advance the intersection of technology and the humanities.
+
+Visit the GitHub repository [here](https://github.com/oss-slu/rerum-playground) to learn more.
+
+---

blog/authors.yml

@@ -50,3 +50,8 @@ Ajith Akuthota:
   name: Ajith Akuthota
   title: Tech Lead at Open Source with SLU
   url: https://github.com/AjithAkuthota23
+
+Lalith Adithya Reddy Avuthu:
+  name: Lalith Adithya Reddy Avuthu
+  title: Tech Lead at Open Source with SLU
+  url: https://github.com/alar12