fix: Add history, update CONTRIBUTING, and move Technical Details into CONTRIBUTING

Author: MoenMi

CONTRIBUTING.md

@@ -0,0 +1,60 @@
+# Contributing
+
+## How to Contribute
+
+The UA Libraries Scholarly API Cookbook is an open source resource. Contributions from students, faculty, staff, and the broader community are welcome.
+
+### Reporting Errors or Suggesting Improvements
+
+If you find an error, outdated code, broken link, or unclear explanation, please open an issue in the [GitHub Issues](https://github.com/UA-Libraries-Research-Data-Services/UALIB_ScholarlyAPI_Cookbook/issues).
+
+When creating an issue, it is helpful to include:
+
+- A link to the specific tutorial page
+- A description of the issue
+- Any relevant error messages
+- Suggested corrections (if available)
+
+We review issues regularly and will respond as soon as possible.
+
+### Requesting New APIs or Tutorials
+
+If you would like to see support for a specific scholarly API, please open a GitHub issue describing:
+
+- The name of the API
+- A link to its official documentation
+- Why it would be useful for research or teaching
+- Whether the API is open access or requires institutional credentials
+
+### Submitting Code Contributions
+
+Before submitting a pull request, please open an issue to discuss proposed changes. This helps ensure alignment with project goals and avoids duplicated work.
+
+For tutorial contributions:
+
+- Follow existing Python or R tutorial structure and formatting, particularly as it relates to licensing, external packages, and API authentication.
+- Ensure all code runs without errors.
+- Include clear explanations and comments.
+- Avoid hard-coded credentials or private API keys.
+
+All contributions are reviewed for accuracy, clarity, reproducibility, and consistency with project standards.
+
+## Project Scope
+
+As of 2025, the Cookbook focuses on maintaining and standardizing Python and R tutorials. Other language have been archived and are no longer actively maintained.
+
+### Project Infrastructure
+
+The Scholarly API Cookbook is built using the following tools:
+
+- Python tutorials are written in [Jupyter Notebooks](https://jupyter.org/).
+- R tutorials are written in RMarkdown and exported to Markdown.
+- Narrative content is written in [reStructuredText](https://www.sphinx-doc.org/en/master/usage/restructuredtext/index.html).
+- The site is compiled using [Jupyter Book](https://jupyterbook.org/).
+- An automated GitHub workflow builds the site and deploys it using [GitHub Actions](https://docs.github.com/en/actions).
+
+Contributors should ensure that all notebooks and Markdown files build successfully before submitting changes.
+
+## Questions
+
+If you are unsure whether an idea fits the project scope, please open an issue to start a discussion.

src/_toc.yml

@@ -274,8 +274,9 @@ parts:
       - file: r/usa-spending
         title: "...in R"
 
+
   - caption: ABOUT
     chapters:
-    - file: about/contributing
+    - file: about/history
+    - file: about/contributing  # Note: This page redirects to CONTRIBUTING.md
     - file: about/license-reuse
-    - file: about/tech-details

src/about/contributing.md

@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+```{include} ../../CONTRIBUTING.md
+```

src/about/contributing.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
+History
+%%%%%%%
+
+Brief History of the UA Libraries Scholarly API Cookbook
+********************************************************
+
+In late 2019, as Research Data Services was formalized within UA Libraries under the leadership
+of Dr. Kevin Walker, we developed an interest in supporting users with programmatic access to
+information through Scholarly APIs. During this time, Dr. Vincent Scalfani started writing
+Scholarly API tutorials related to chemistry and bibliographic APIs.
+
+We soon saw the value in a broad range of disciplinary API tutorials and started a coordinated
+effort to create the UA Libraries Scholarly API Cookbook in 2021. We built a team of UA student
+developers, which quickly brought the Cookbook from an idea to a coordinated open education
+documentation project. Vishank Patel and Anastasia Ramig wrote the early Mathematica and MATLAB
+tutorials, respectively. Avery Fernandez set up the original Jupyter Book and automated builds
+on GitHub and wrote numerous Python and Bash tutorials (and later re-wrote many of them!).
+Adam Nguyen filled a gap in scripting languages by writing the first collection of R tutorials,
+and Cyrus Gomes translated tutorials to C.
+
+There have been many other contributions from talented students including Sebastian Shirk, Jay
+Crawford, Nate Pedigo, and Michael Moen. In addition to contributing tutorials, in 2023,
+Michael started to lead the maintenance of the Cookbook, including testing, reviewing, merging
+contributions, and adding other improvements to the build workflow and metadata. By early 2025,
+we had approached nearly 100 tutorials across six different programming languages. We made the
+decision to `archive`_ many of the tutorials and focus our efforts on standardizing and
+maintaining the Python and R tutorials moving forward. Michael Moen has since led this Cookbook
+standardization effort and serves as our student lead maintainer for the Scholarly API Cookbook.
+
+From 2021-2025, Dr. Vincent Scalfani supervised the day-to-day operations of the Scholarly API
+Cookbook, assisting students with code, use-case ideas, and final review. This supervisory role
+shifted to other Research Computing staff and faculty in 2025. Currently, Dr. Rachel DuBose and
+Dakeya Chambers lead the supervision and reviews for the Scholarly API Cookbook, with Chambers
+providing daily, hands on oversight throughout the process.
+
+.. _archive: https://github.com/UA-Libraries-Research-Data-Services/Scholarly_API_Cookbook_Archive