Welcome to International Fanworks Day (IFD) Feedback Fest 2026! Feedback Fest is when we celebrate fanworks that creators have made on AO3 or elsewhere by recommending them to others and leaving comments for the creators as well.
Our theme for IFD 2026 is Alternate Universes (AUs), where we celebrate all the fun and exciting AUs that fans have created!
Want to participate in this year's Feedback Fest? Here’s how to do it!
Leave a comment under this post recommending your favorite fanworks that involve an AU. Tell everyone why you love these works and why they should check them out. You can also link to a recommendation post you've made elsewhere, or create a new recommendation post on your social media accounts using the #FeedbackFest2026 tag. Keep the diversity of fanworks in mind when making recommendations—you can share fics, podfics, fanart, zines, archives, collections, newsletters, and anything that sparks joy in you about fandom. There's many wonderful fanworks out there and we want to hear about all of them!
While going through the recommendations, it’s nice to leave feedback—comments, kudos, likes—for the creators as well! Feel free to boost the recommendations from other people that you enjoyed. This year’s Feedback Fest is all about the universes and worlds people have enjoyed placing their favorite characters in, so try and think of your favorite AU fanworks to recommend!
Start your reccing, and we’ll see you on the other side—and once again we wish you a happy #IFD2026!
The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, OTW Legal Advocacy, and Transformative Works and Cultures. We are a fan-run, donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.
February 15 is almost here, and it’s time to get ready for the 12th annual International Fanworks Day (IFD)! This year’s theme is Alternate Universes (AUs), and in honor of #IFD2026, the OTW has quite a few activities planned to celebrate with all of you. Check out the list below to find out how you can get involved!
Feedback Fest: It wouldn’t be IFD without our annual Feedback Fest! This is your chance to share your favorite Alternate Universe fanworks and get some great recommendations for yourself in return. Look for our Feedback Fest post on February 13, and leave a comment with 10 fanwork recommendations for your fellow fans. On social media, use the tag #FeedbackFest when posting.
Share your fanworks: Tag your own AU fanworks on AO3 with International Fanworks Day 2026, or share them on social media using the #IFD2026 or #IFDChallenge2026 tags!
Fanlore Challenge: The festivities aren’t limited to AO3! Fanlore, the OTW’s fannish history and culture wiki, will be celebrating as well! From February 14-20, join Fanlore for a new editing challenge to complete every day. To participate, refer to the IFD 2026 Fanlore Challenge page for more information.
Games and Fan Chat: On February 15, we’ll be opening the gates of the OTW's once-a-year Discord server. Join us between 21:00 UTC February 14 (What time is that for me?) and 03:00 UTC February 16 (What time is that for me?) to play games and chat with other fans! The chat room will be moderated in English, and we’ll post a detailed schedule on the 15th.
We also invited you to send us your community events for this IFD, so in addition to what we're doing, here are some fan-led events:
The Fandom Melodies, Intertwined Edition
(in English, some small parts in other languages allowed)
This event is already running, and ends on February 28. You can submit entries in any form, though written material is preferred.
This event will run from February 1 to February 28. It's meant to motivate people to comment more on fic (new and older!), especially since February is the month with the lowest amount of commenting! There are multiple challenges and there are also fun things one can do to spice up their comment a little!
This event will run from February 15 to February 28. You can participate however you like, and there will be a set of questions provided for people to reminisce about and share their fandom experience!
Thank you so much for being a part of our fan community throughout the year. See you at #IFD2026!
The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, OTW Legal Advocacy, and Transformative Works and Cultures. We are a fan-run, donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.
What do the country of Portugal, the city of Seoul, and the Archive of Our Own (AO3) have in common? They are all home to more than 10 million people! That's right: AO3 has surpassed 10 million registered users this month! We at the Organisation for Transformative Works (OTW) are delighted to share this incredible milestone with you.
Even as the community is growing year by year, the active exchange of creations and ideas between fans remains as a cornerstone of fan culture. Whether it's gifting each other fanfic, recording a podfic of your favorite story, or putting together a reclist of fics—no fandom thrives without the myriad ways fans share their passion with one another. In today's world, where ideas are just one more commodity, and content is curated for maximum revenue, it's more important than ever to appreciate and celebrate these aspects of fan spaces.
One way to let other fans know you appreciate the love and hard work they pour into their creations is commenting on their work. In celebration of this milestone, we have prepared a Bingo all about comments! Below you can find the bingo cards in both a square and vertical format.
You can fill out as many bingo squares as you want—the more comments, the merrier! Let us know on this post or on social media which Bingos you scored.
Happy commenting, and a huge thank you to everyone who helped us reach this milestone!
The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, OTW Legal Advocacy, and Transformative Works and Cultures. We are a fan-run, donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.
2025 was a busy year for AO3! The site continued to see rising traffic, with Communicationspublishing an update on AO3 statistics from 2020-2025. In December, Support received 3,589 tickets, totaling to over 40,000 tickets received in 2025, an all-time high. Meanwhile, Policy & Abuse (PAC) received 6,357 tickets in December, totaling approximately 47,500 tickets in 2025. Check out PAC's pie chart for more details.
Pie chart of the approximately 47,500 Policy & Abuse tickets submitted in 2025, divided by type of complaint. These categories reflect the subject of the complaint, and (with the exception of Offensive Content), do not indicate whether the report was upheld or rejected.
In the first half of January, User Response Translation translated or betaed 32 ticket requests from Support and PAC.
In December, Tag Wrangling wrangled approximately 598,000 tags, or around 1,300 tags per volunteer. In total, they wrangled approximately 4,944,000 tags in 2025. They also continued work on handling "No Fandom" additional tags, publishing December and January news posts detailing recent changes. In total, Tag Wrangling published nine "No Fandom"-related news posts in 2025 covering around 399 new canonical "No Fandom" additional tags.
In January, Tag Wrangling updated their Fandom Tag Metatag guidelines, including clarifying when a fandom metatag should be made and when to merge closely related fandoms into one fandom tag. Check out the news post detailing the new policy.
As part of International Volunteers Day (IVD) 2025, Communications collected and batched answers to the IVD Q&A by committee, resulting in five committee-specific news posts highlighting Communications, Support, Tag Wrangling, Translation, and Volunteers & Recruiting. Answers across committees, along with additional responses not featured in the news posts, have been compiled in a separate AO3 work.
III. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW
Fanlore ran an editing chat to close out 2025, and it was a lot of fun! They also began preparing for their annual IFD Fanlore Challenge and Femslash February event! Keep an eye on their Bluesky, Twitter/X, and Tumblr for announcements.
Legal answered many internal and external questions this month.
In January, Communications' Fanhackers wrote about the Transformative Approaches to Fan Identity, and they began a multi-post survey of acafannish research and publishing resources.
IV. GOVERNANCE
In December, Board announced the resignations of two directors: Kathryn Solderholm and Erica Frank. We would like to thank Erica and Kathryn for their service as members of the Board, and wish them all the best in their future endeavours with the OTW.
In January, Board finalized and approved the OTW Procurement & Purchasing Policy. They and the Board Assistants Team (BAT) organised the first quarter of 2026 public Board meeting on January 18 which had 54 attendees. Minutes of this meeting will be available soon on the OTW website. Elsewhere, Board and BAT continued work on document review and archiving board statements, Code of Conduct tasks in conjunction with Organizational Culture Roadmap, and ongoing projects for mental health resources for volunteers, scheduling tools, public meeting best practices and volunteer retention in BAT. BAT also updated their OTW website committee page.
Organizational Culture Roadmap finalized a confidentiality policy in preparation for upcoming external recruitment.
V. OUR VOLUNTEERS
In December, Volunteers & Recruiting thanked all OTW volunteers on International Volunteer Day with their organization-wide email and graphics campaign. In January, they ran recruitment for Open Doors.
From November 22 to January 23, Volunteers & Recruiting received 355 new requests, and completed 378, leaving them with 52 open requests (including induction and removal tasks listed below). As of January 23, 2025, the OTW has 1,013 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.
New Subcommittee Leads/Workgroup Heads: Eevee (Internal Complaint and Conflict Resolution Lead) and megidola (Organizational Culture Roadmap Workgroup Head) New AO3 Documentation Volunteers: Lulu S (Chair Trainee) New Fanlore Volunteers: Elfie, Konsta Morales, Watts, and 1 other Graphic Designer New Open Doors Volunteers: Addiebees, AviLine, feelyx, LeighR, Marie K, meservey66, MetaKass, miffmiff, Mort, pinkconstellations, SleepyJane, Spit, StormySea, Truendz, Vail, and 11 other Import Assistants New Policy & Abuse Volunteers: megidola (Supervisor) and 1 Chair Track Volunteer New Tag Wrangling Volunteers: Chelsea Cheyanne, inspiredstork, Sanity, will, and Yrindor (Supervisors) New Translation Volunteers: Rhine and 1 other Chair Trainee; Arushi, athursdayschild, Eirinar, Linarii, Mira8, Niki K, Phoebe B, Pi, Rita P, and 12 other Translators New TWC Volunteers: Fiona M, Yumi, and 3 other Layout Editors; and 2 Outreach and Communications Editors New User Response Translation Volunteers: Eki, f0f8ff, HARRitte, Jules R, Laus, PanPan, rosings, zoy zauce, and 3 other Translators
Departing Directors: Erica Frank and Kathryn Soderholm Departing Committee Chairs: 1 Communications Chair and 1 Elections Chair Departing BAT Volunteers: 1 Volunteer Departing Communications Volunteers: KW Ukuku (TikTok Moderator), Lori P (Graphics Volunteer), 1 Fanhacker Volunteer, and 1 Social Media Moderator Departing Communications News Post Moderation Volunteers: 1 News Post Moderator Departing Development & Membership Volunteers: 1 Graphic Designer, 2 Membership Data Specialists, and 2 Volunteers Departing Fanlore Volunteers: 1 Discord Moderator, 1 Outreach Analyst, and 1 Policy & Admin Departing Open Doors Volunteers: Pelagia and 1 other Administrative Volunteer, Wynne (Import Assistant), and 1 FCPP Intern Departing Policy & Abuse Volunteers: 1 Volunteer Departing Strategic Planning Volunteers: 1 Volunteer Departing Support Volunteers: Nary and 22 other Volunteers Departing Tag Wrangling Volunteers: Nary and 1 other Supervisor; Asas Carmesins, Bruno, Eevee, lianneder, Lily_Haydee_Lohdisse, McBangle, Sayornis, Tea Huimyni, and 10 other Wranglers Departing Translation Volunteers: Teelee (Task Assistant); Illiterations and 4 Translators Departing TWC Volunteers: Melanie Kohnen (Review Editor); Courtney Lazore and 1 other Proofreader; and 1 Symposium Editor Departing User Response Translation Volunteers: 1 Translator Departing Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteers: 1 Senior Volunteer and 2 Volunteers
For more information about our committees and their regular activities, you can refer to the committee pages on our website.
The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, OTW Legal Advocacy, and Transformative Works and Cultures. We are a fan-run, donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.
AO3 Tag Wranglers continue to test processes for wrangling canonical additional tags (tags that appear in the auto-complete) which don't belong to any particular fandom (also known as "No Fandom" tags). This post overviews some of these upcoming changes.
In this round of updates, we began adjusting existing canonical "No Fandom" tags to add or remove new subtag and metatag relationships. We also continued to streamline creating new canonical tags, prioritizing more straightforward updates which would have less discussion compared to renaming current canonical tags or creating new canonical tags which touch on more complex topics. This method also reviews new tags on a regular basis, so check back on AO3 News for periodic "No Fandom" tag announcements.
None of these updates change the tags users have added to works. If a user-created tag is considered to have the same meaning as a new canonical, it will be made a synonym of one of these newly created canonical tags, and works with that user-created tag will appear when the canonical tag is selected.
In short, these changes only affect which tags appear in AO3's auto-complete and filters. You can and should continue to tag your works however you prefer.
New Canonicals
The following concepts have been made new canonical tags:
Additionally, this month we began making adjustments to existing canonical tags to add or remove new subtag and metatag relationships, which help users find related content and filter in/out content as they browse works on AO3.
While some of these tags may be tags and concepts you're intimately familiar with, others may be concepts you've never heard of before. Fortunately, our fellow OTW volunteers at Fanlore may be able to help! As you may have seen in the comments sections of previous posts, Fanlore is a fantastic resource for learning more about these common fandom concepts, and about the history and lore of fandom in general. For the curious, here's a quick look at a few articles about concepts related to this month's new canonical tags:
While we won't be announcing every change we make to No Fandom canonical tags, you can expect similar updates in the future about tags we believe will most affect users. If you're interested in the changes we'll be making, you can continue to check AO3 News or follow us on Bluesky @wranglers.archiveofourown.org or Tumblr @ao3org for future announcements.
You can also read previous updates on "No Fandom" tags as well as other wrangling updates, linked below:
For more information about AO3's tag system, check out our Tags FAQ.
In addition to providing technical help, AO3 Support also handles requests related to how tags are sorted and connected. If you have questions about specific tags, which were first used over a month ago and are unrelated to any of the new canonical tags listed above, please contact Support instead of leaving a comment on this post.
Please keep in mind that discussions about what tags to canonize and what format they should take are ongoing. As a result, not all related concepts will be canonized at the same time. This does not mean that related or similar concepts will not be canonized in the future or that we have chosen to canonize one specific concept in lieu of another, simply that we likely either haven’t gotten to that related concept yet or that it needs further discussion and will take a bit longer for us to canonize it as a result. We appreciate your patience and understanding.
Lastly, we're still working on implementing changes and connecting relevant user-created tags to these new canonicals, so it’ll be some time before these updates are complete. If you have questions about specific tags which should be connected to these new canonicals, please refrain from contacting Support about them until at least three months from now to give us adequate time to do so.
The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, OTW Legal Advocacy, and Transformative Works and Cultures. We are a fan-run, donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.
Over the last year, Tag Wranglers have been actively discussing how to make fandom metatags more useful to users, both to find the content they're looking for and filter out the content they aren't. Since our last update, these discussions have now concluded, and we want to provide an update about how our guidelines have changed.
Fandom metatags allow Tag Wranglers to connect groups of related fandoms together so that they can be more easily filtered on as a group. For example, if you're interested in all works related to Game of Thrones (TV), including the related novels or the 2014 video game, you may be interested in filtering on its metatag: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms. Filtering on the metatag means that you will find all the works tagged with the metatag itself or tagged with any of its individual subtags. In addition to this, having a group of fandoms connected together as a metatag and subtags means that selecting "Exclude crossovers" in the sidebar will not exclude works tagged with more than one subtag, and that selecting "Show only crossovers" will not include works tagged more than one subtags.
Metatags are different from merging ("synning") tags. When two tags are merged, the filters will treat them as if they are the same tag. When they are moved together under a metatag, each can still be filtered out individually from the metatag.
Guidelines update
Following extensive discussion, we have updated our guidelines related to fandom metatag trees, including when to create a metatag for related fandoms, when to merge closely related fandoms into one fandom tag (such as merging an anime and a manga), and when to split out subtags from a currently merged tag. The below paragraphs detail these updates and link to where you can find more information.
Metatag guidelines
Moving forward, Tag Wranglers may connect related fandoms using a metatag if there are at least two canons already canonized on AO3 that are:
Closely related adaptations;
The same story adapted across different media; or
Canon with official prequels, sequels, or other related adaptations set in a shared universe.
Whether a fandom metatag is created will vary based on the specific fandom. Not all fandoms will require a metatag, even if they fit the above criteria, and some fandoms with complex and sprawling canons may require multiple levels of metatags. Fandoms that do not fit one of the above criteria can be evaluated for a metatag on a case by case basis, focusing on what would be most useful to the majority of its fans. Tag Wranglers are fans of these canons as well and may base their decisions on a variety of factors such as whether the fan base generally considers these separate canons as distinct, or to what extent fans of different adaptations overlap.
Existing metatags, such as Star Wars - All Media Types or Marvel will not be required to match these rules or formats. These formats and guidelines will be applied to newly created fandom tags or existing tags if Tag Wranglers or users request changes.
In addition to determining when a metatag may be created, Tag Wranglers have also identified some circumstances where a metatag would not be beneficial to the majority of fans and therefore these fandoms will be canonized separately, not linked by a metatag. These are generally fandoms that are not closely related, such as:
Fandoms which are only connected by minor crossover events
Fandoms which share a performer, director, or creator/creative team but are not related through a shared continuity, shared characters, or other shared elements
You can find the full list of situations where Tag Wranglers decided a metatag would not be beneficial in the Metatag Wrangling Guidelines.
Fandom merging guidelines
Similar to determining which existing tags should have a metatag and don't currently, existing tags that have multiple adaptations merged together into one fandom tag may instead canonize their adaptations and subtag them to a metatag if they meet the guidelines above for when to create a metatag. These will also be handled on a case by case basis based on what is most appropriate for the fandom.
Finally, Tag Wranglers reviewed their guidelines on when to merge fandom tags for two related adaptations into one shared fandom tag (e.g. fandom tags like Naruto (Anime & Manga)), partially in relation to anime and manga fandoms. Going forward, when requested by users and/or Tag Wranglers, fandom tags for nearly identical adaptations may be merged if it is determined that this will be what is most useful to AO3 users. These requests will always be examined on a case by case basis.
Canonizing adaptations separately will remain the default, as it's much easier to merge later if appropriate than it is to separate them. This is particularly true in the case of ongoing canons where it's highly possible that the adaptations may diverge in plot, character development, etc.
Changes in progress
As part of these guideline updates, we've already begun processing some commonly requested metatag and fandom changes. The below list represents a small sample of changes that we've already made in response to requests from Tag Wranglers and users. This is not a comprehensive list of every change we have made or will make, but these examples show how the above changes may look in practice.
The above changes are already live on AO3, and others will be made in the coming days as wranglers and users request changes to their fandom's structure in connection with this change.
Have questions or want to request a metatag change?
You can find these specific guideline updates on our Metatag and Fandom Wrangling Guideline pages. As mentioned above, other fandoms may already be discussing making changes. These discussions will also include requests from users who've previously submitted feedback to Support. If you have submitted a request within the past six months asking for a metatag or merger to be considered, there is no need to submit another request at this time as your request is already being reviewed.
If you have questions about specific tags, want to request a change to your fandom's metatag, or have other questions about this change, please contact Support instead of leaving a comment on this post. Support handles questions and requests related to how tags are sorted and connected in addition to providing technical support to AO3's users.
Do not contact Support if the tags you wish to ask about are less than one month old. Please give Tag Wranglers time to handle new tags and wait to request changes until at least one month after a tag's first use.
Finally, while we know the majority of users find having a metatag helpful, we are aware that not everyone agrees with this due to the limits it creates on filtering. As such, we wanted to provide some advice on how to filter out works tagged with the metatag, if you wish to. Please select "How to exclude works tagged with a metatag" below to expand the instructions on excluding works tagged with a metatag.
How to exclude works tagged with a metatag
You can exclude works tagged with a metatag using the metatag's Tag ID, using the following process. For ease of use, we recommend you do this on a computer rather than on your mobile device.
Begin by finding the Tag ID of the metatag you want to filter out from its source code. Open the works page of the metatag you want to filter out, such as The Hobbit - All Media Types. Right-click on the "Favorite Tag" button, then select "Inspect". In the window that opens, locate the line that says: value="X" name="favorite_tag[tag_id]" where X is the ID of your tag. It should be directly above what is automatically highlighted when you click Inspect.
For this example, the Tag ID for The Hobbit - All Media Types is 541478. This is a fandom tag, so the search operator you'll need is fandom_ids:541478. (You can use this trick for other tag types, just swap the word fandom in fandom_ids for character, relationship, or freeform.)
Next, go to the works page for the specific subfandom whose works you want to read. For this example, we'll use The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien.
In the Filters sidebar, enter -fandom_ids:541478 in the "Search within results" field. This will show you all works tagged with "The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien", except those that are also tagged with "The Hobbit - All Media Types" (viewable here).
If filtering by tag ID is something you want to do often and you'd like to make your life a bit easier, you can use an unofficial script to display the tag ID of all canonical tags directly on the works page (if you're unfamiliar with scripts, you can find more information in our Unofficial Browser Tools FAQ).
The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, OTW Legal Advocacy, and Transformative Works and Cultures. We are a fan-run, donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.
Open Doors is pleased to announce the completion of 9 archive import projects in 2025, plus an additional 5 subcollections, a total of over 34,000 works! We hope that you will find old and new favorites in the collections listed below.
Remembering Tiger Lily Roar
Completed: February 2025
Remembering Tiger Lily Roar is a memorial account for fanfiction written by Tiger Lily Roar, who was active in many fandoms, especially Young Justice. This memorial account was set up with the assistance of Open Doors with permission from Tiger Lily Roar’s family and is maintained by Eva.
due South Seekrit Santa (dSSS) is an annual gift exchange challenge for fans of due South. The dSSS archive was originally on http://dsss.crocolanthus.com/. After many attempts to communicate with the server admin/owner went unanswered, the crocolanthus dSSS archive went offline, and the domain name was lost. To preserve the archive, the works from the 2004-2009 exchanges were imported to AO3 by Open Doors and dSSS.
Snow Lands was a fanfiction and fan comic archive for The Lion King (1994 animated movie) online until June 2023 and was run by Athari. The website hosted works in English and Russian and preserved some of the fandom’s masterpieces.
The Slash Advent Calendar was a multifandom slash challenge that ran every December from 2002 to 2005. Founded by kira-nerys at Lady Kardasi Productions, it included works from fandoms such as Star Trek, Harry Potter, The Sentinel, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The archive went offline in 2010.
My Mongoose is a Sentinel fanfiction and fanart ezine collection archive. In an effort to consolidate all My Mongoose Ezines, including all stories, art and miscellaneous, the creator and moderators decided to house the works at Archive of our Own.
Stayka’s Saint Seiya Archive was a Saint Seiya fansite that started in 1998. It was an important early contributor to the Saint Seiya fandom, as one of the first sites on the internet to use English, unifying the uniquely global and diverse fan following. The site went offline in 2019, after which Tracy began contacting individual creators and collecting permission to ensure permanent preservation.
Oz Magi is an annual gift exchange for the HBO Oz fandom that has been active since 2004 on LiveJournal and Dreamwidth. The moderator created an AO3 collection for Oz Magi in 2012, but wanted to also archive the earlier fanworks. This will be an ongoing import, with each year’s fanworks being transferred across to AO3 on behalf of the creators.
The related imports of HBO Oz archives Unit B and Twisted Sisterhood are still in progress.
InDeath.net Fan Fiction is a fanfiction archive for the In Death book series by Nora Roberts, writing as J.D. Robb. It was a sub-section of the InDeath.net forum community, and the forum had sections for discussing fanfiction posted to the InDeath.net Fan Fiction archive.
Inugrrrl was a longtime fan and fanfiction writer of InuYasha and the InuYasha/Kagome pairing. In her own words, she was known for “writing characterization-breaking, smut-filled, angst-riddled, alternate universe pulp fiction without a hint of shame, regret, or apology.” She was active in the fanbase from 2005-2024. Inugrrrl tragically passed away in June of 2024 and her daughter wished for her mother’s fanworks to remain online for the fanbase to enjoy.
We want to give a huge THANK YOU to all of the archivists and volunteers who made these imports possible, as well as all the creators who have transferred or claimed their works! We look forward to importing more archives in 2026.
Commenting on this post will be disabled in 14 days. If you have any questions, concerns, or comments regarding these imports after that date, please contact Open Doors.
The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, OTW Legal Advocacy, and Transformative Works and Cultures. We are a fan-run, donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.
Are you a current or former Digital Humanities or Library and Information Science student? The Organization for Transformative Works is recruiting!
We're excited to announce the opening of applications for:
Open Doors Digital Collections Intern - closing 29 January 2026 at 23:59 UTC or after 40 applications
We have included more information on each role below. Open roles and applications will always be available at the volunteering page. If you don't see a role that fits with your skills and interests now, keep an eye on the listings. We plan to put up new applications every few weeks, and we will also publicize new roles as they become available.
All applications generate a confirmation page and an auto-reply to your e-mail address. We encourage you to read the confirmation page and to whitelist our email address in your e-mail client. If you do not receive the auto-reply within 24 hours, please check your spam filters and then contact us.
If you have questions regarding volunteering for the OTW, check out our Volunteering FAQ.
Open Doors Digital Collections Intern
Open Doors is a committee dedicated to preserving fanworks in their many formats, and we’re looking for a temporary intern to support this goal. The work we do preserves fan history, love, and dedication to fandom: we keep fanworks from offline and at-risk archives from being lost, divert fanzines from the trash, and more.
Open Doors is seeking a current or former Digital Humanities or Library and Information Science student to join us for approximately 8-12 weeks (start date is flexible between 1 April and 1 July 2026). The intern should be able to commit at least 10-15 hours per week for the duration of the position. This internship will provide the intern with a temporary position on Open Doors during which they will complete at least one of several available relevant projects while learning more about the committee’s work. The primary project available is to scope and gather requirements for a digital asset management system for archives/zines. However, time permitting, there may be additional projects available, such as investigating options for automating metadata cleanup.
Applicants should be studying toward (or have completed) a Library and Information Science or related degree (in the US or elsewhere in the world), and they should be fluent in written English. The position will be unpaid and entirely virtual/remote. (We may be able to work with university programs that provide compensation or credit for nonprofit work, but we cannot provide in-person supervision.) We will need your assistance connecting us to any university program that may need documentation to provide credit for you.
The intern might be offered a continuing (unpaid, not for credit) volunteer position upon completion of this internship. However, Open Doors cannot guarantee that completing this internship will result in a continuing volunteer role, and the intern will not be required to accept a continuing role if one is offered.
If you're interested, please click through to the application form! Please note you will be required to provide an unofficial college/university transcript as well as a resume/CV as part of your application. For your application to be considered, you will be required to complete a short task within 3 days of submitting your application.
Applications are due 29 January 2026 or after 40 applications
The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, OTW Legal Advocacy, and Transformative Works and Cultures. We are a fan-run, donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.
