Why Longwood Gardens is looking for hackers

With 142 different kinds, Longwood Gardens has one of the largest collections of wild boxwood in the country. The sprawling Kennett Square garden hopes that hackers at this weekend’s GLAM Hack Philly, held in University City, can make a map that shows where all their boxwood comes from. Longwood Gardens said it would be a good addition to their collection, which it plans to submit to the national plant collection network.

Hack with that data and more at this weekend’s GLAM Hack Philly at Penn. GLAM is short for galleries, libraries, archives and museums.

RSVP here.

Check out other challenges submitted by organizations here.

One of the goals of the hackathon is to encourage more cultural heritage organizations to release its data, said co-organizer Chad Nelson. Nelson, a developer at Lyrasis, is organizing the hackathon with Kelli Massa, a freelance web content strategist, and Dot Porter, who works at the Kislak Center for Special Collections at Penn Libraries.