Hacking the Library (in the best possible way) – notes from Code Club

At a recent Code Club workshop, we invited staff – armed only with a web browser and a few clever tools – to go behind State Library Victoria’s website and explore the hidden layers of digital collections.

Tim Sherratt 1, historian and hacker, and SLV LAB creative technologist-in-residence, shared how he pokes around online collections to understand how they work – and how they might work better. His approach is grounded in experimentation, and in seeing websites not as finished products, but as living, evolving systems that can be fixed and reimagined.

When Tim talks about hacking, he’s not talking about stealing data or crashing servers. Hacking, to him, is a way of solving problems or working around limitations. It's a way to ask questions about how digital collections are built and what they leave out.

Online collections change over time – new material gets added, interfaces evolve and the tools we use to access them shift. So, just as we interrogate materials, we should also interrogate the digital platforms that deliver them.

"Hacking the systems that construct and control access to our cultural collections is at the core of humanities practice in the early 21st century. As online collections continue to expand, we need to carve out spaces that resist the weight of scale and foster alternative perspectives. As interfaces grow in sophistication and complexity, we need to stage playful and pointed interventions that reveal their limits and empower critique. We do not all have to be coders, but we do have to take code seriously. We have to take what we are given by collection databases and change it. "

– Tim Sherratt, ‘Hacking Heritage: Understanding the Limits of Online Access’, 2019

Tim began with the basics: reading URLs. It turns out that URLs can tell you a lot about how a site is structured. By stripping away parameters or changing values, you can often uncover hidden functionality or cleaner data sources.

• Read Tim’s guide to exploring URLs using State Library Victoria’s webpages

Next came the browser’s developer tools – those magical panels that let you inspect, edit and experiment with the guts of a webpage. Tim showed how you can:

• view and edit HTML elements
• change styles and images on the fly
• use the 'Network' tab to see what resources are being loaded behind the scenes.

One example that got staff excited was how the Library’s catalogue loads MARC records 2. The interface shows you a styled HTML version, but if you dig into the network traffic, you can find the raw text version. This is perfect for researchers who want to extract structured data without all the fluff.

Tim then introduced two browser-based tools that let you modify websites without needing access to the backend: bookmarklets 3 and userscripts 4.

Bookmarklets are tiny bits of JavaScript saved as bookmarks. They’re limited in scope but great for quick tasks, like checking if a digitised image has been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons.

Userscripts, on the other hand, are where the fun begins. Installed via extensions like Tampermonkey or Violentmonkey, userscripts let you:

• insert new content into pages
• modify layouts and styles
• interact with external APIs.

Tim shared several examples from his own work, including a script that adds Wikimedia Commons links directly into digitised item pages, and another that overlays facial images onto archival records – turning dry files into human stories.

One script recreated the microfilm experience, letting users browse newspaper pages using arrow keys. It’s a small tweak, but it changes how you engage with the material.

Tim emphasised the importance of play by encouraging everyone to experiment and to break things. He presented a script that turned the Library’s website into a digital scavenger hunt, hiding Easter eggs in footnotes and guiding users through clues.

He also acknowledged the challenges. Userscripts can be fragile – if a website changes its structure, your script might break. But learning and adaptation are all part of the process.

Tim’s goal was to demystify browser tools and show that anyone can start exploring and even improving the Library’s digital infrastructure. Whether you’re trying to prototype a new interface, expose hidden data or just make your own research workflow smoother, these tools are accessible and empowering. And for those working inside GLAM institutions, userscripts can be a powerful way to advocate for change and prototype improvements without needing to overhaul entire systems.

Resources

• For a more detailed guide to GLAM Hacking with userscripts, check out Tim's blog post on his website.
• W3 Schools HTML DOM
• Mozilla DOM Documentation
• Tampermonkey documentation
• GLAM Workbench