When the Organization for Transformative Works was founded in 2007, the AO3 was just an idea. In July this year, we reached 5 million fanworks and 2 million registered users and on 14th November this year, we will be celebrating the AO3’s tenth anniversary. We have chosen to mark the occasion with a series of posts from long-time members and founding volunteers, sharing a glimpse into what the archive looks like from the inside.

So prepare yourselves for a series of posts over the next two weeks. We have five big contributors from the OTW’s long list of volunteers, and they won’t be holding back! We asked each of them to share some stories about what things were like in the early days of the AO3, their experiences as a volunteer with the OTW, and where they think the organization may be headed in the future.

In the upcoming days, you’ll hear from Francesca Coppa and Michele Tepper about the collaboration and the range of skills that were necessary to launch AO3 and the OTW’s other projects. You’ll also hear from one of our long-time staffers Rebecca Sentance about how she came to volunteer for the AO3, from james_ about what it was like to accept a Hugo award onstage, and from Matty about wrangling the AO3’s very first tags.

We hope that these posts will give you some insight into the history and day-to-day operation of the AO3, and that you are as excited as we are by what the site has become. We are proud of everything the AO3 represents as an open and inclusive place for fans to host their work, and we can’t wait to see how it develops and grows over the next ten years and beyond.