Ben Companjen
Digital Scholarship Librarian at Leiden University
The Hague, South Holland, Netherlands
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolBen Companjen is a Digital Scholarship Librarian and software engineer with 14 years of experience building well-tested, maintainable back-end systems for research infrastructures. He combines a computer science master's with practical service management at institutions like Leiden University and DANS, where he shaped DataverseNL operations, digital preservation policy, and metadata integration pipelines. An active contributor to notable open-source projects such as Open Library and Dataverse, he focuses on data representation, RDF generation, and code quality improvements that make research data more interoperable. Comfortable with automation but pragmatic about when human-centered, paper-based sketching is needed, he brings a mix of systems thinking and hands-on engineering to streamline scholarly workflows. Based in The Hague, he favors lean, auditable solutions that quietly improve how researchers manage and discover data.
14 years of coding experience
3 years of employment as a software developer
Master of Science (MSc), Computer Science, Master of Science (MSc), Computer Science at University of Twente
English, Dutch
Stackoverflow
1,435reputation
71kreached
43answers
1question
rdf
top-5%
Github Skills (30)
python10
java10
javas10
rdf10
logging10
javadoc9
html-template9
python-templates9
apptemplates9
cpp-templates9
refactoring9
code-templates9
data-structures8
data-structure8
google-books8
Programming languages (21)
Github contributions (5)
IQSS/dataverse
May 2015 - Apr 2016
Open source research data repository software
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:35 reviews, 23 commits, 48 PRs in 11 months
Contributions summary:Ben primarily focused on refactoring and improving existing code within the Dataverse software. This included replacing `System.out.print` statements with logging statements in several Java files and adding or modifying Javadoc comments for better documentation of classes and methods. Furthermore, the user updated raw type references and fixed type references in various classes, aiming to improve the code's maintainability and robustness. These changes suggest a focus on code quality and maintainability.
data-repository
internetarchive/openlibrary
Jan 2012 - May 2014
One webpage for every book ever published!
Role in this project:Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:1 review, 23 commits, 1 PR in 2 years 4 months
Contributions summary:Ben primarily contributed to the back-end aspects of the Open Library project, making changes to templates, and modifying the RDF generation. Their work included adding features such as handling the "revision" parameter, and correcting URI references. They also focused on enhancing the project's internal workings, such as logging ISBN transformation errors. The user’s contributions centered on improving data representation and enhancing the Open Library's integration capabilities.
reactinternet-archiveeverlibrary-cataloguepublished
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