At the Library: Expanding access through historical transcription

Many people are familiar with citizen science crowdsourcing initiatives that enable members of the general public to become involved with research, perhaps by taking swabs of dirt from their homes for the Wild Life of Our Homes project, as I did some years ago. Today I want to talk about a different kind of citizen project, one that enables greater access to historical documents by transcribing documents originally handwritten or only available as picture scans into a format that is easily readable and searchable by potential users. Many of these projects are sponsored by GLAM organizations (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums); others by independent organizations like The Zooniverse. I’m going to briefly describe a number of these projects that might be of interest to teachers and students, homeschoolers and lifelong learners — this could be a fun way to spend some time this summer.

The Washington State Library: Potential transcribers must create an account at WSL’s Scribe page (scribe.digitalarchives.wa.gov). Once that is done, users will see a User’s Guide and a list of all the transcription projects available. Right now, available projects are grouped into marriage records, naturalization records, and school district registers and censuses.

The Library of Congress: The LoC’s transcription hub is By the People (crowd.loc.gov). Current transcription campaigns include projects around nurse and Red Cross founder Clara Barton, poet Walt Whitman, philosopher Hannah Arendt and landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead. If you are fluent in Spanish or Latin, take a look at the legal documents in the Herencia collection. A list of completed campaigns can be found at crowd.loc.gov/campaigns/completed.

The National Archives: The Archives has a Citizen Archivist Dashboard (archives.gov/citizen-archivist) where you can learn more and sign up. Current transcription “missions” include Director of Central Intelligence Historical Files, 1947-1980, Records Relating to Camps, Posts, and Forts, 1917-1925, a collection of military service records of African American troops in the Civil War and more. There is a lot of helpful and contextual information available, including tips for reading historic documents and transcribing tables and charts and more.

The Smithsonian: The Smithsonian Transcription Center (transcription.si.edu) has an extensive list of available projects including Project PHaEDRA, which is transcribing the notebooks of the “Women Astronomical Computers,” who worked at the Harvard College Observatory in the early part of the 20th century. Other projects are centered around the Civil War era, and more. Note: They have a lot of finished projects that have not yet been separated out of the in-process list.

The Zooniverse: This is a larger “people-powered research” organization (zooniverse.org), but it includes several transcription projects, including a Spanish medieval records project, a project describing and organizing old postcards from Michigan and more.

Finally, a fun example of a crowdsourced transcription project is the New York Public Library’s historical menu collection project (menus.nypl.org). This is a great way to learn about how people used to eat and to make yourself hungry! OK, one more — Chicago’s Newberry Library’s Unlock the Past! Project (publications.newberry.org/transcribe) is all about transcribing from their collections of diaries and letters.

So, does all this work make a difference? In a blog post(bit.ly/414v8So) the LoC’s By the People project’s community manager noted the positive effect transcription has on search and discovery, finding observable improvements in both related to transcription availability. You can’t use something you can’t find or read.

Anyone can be a transcriber, although at least one hub suggests that transcribers be in the eighth grade or older. It can be done individually, or in a group — a student at Youngstown State University in Ohio even started a club for transcribing Library of Congress manuscripts last year(bit.ly/3zUyb3K).

Individual transcribing hubs may each have their own policies and procedures — many projects require transcriptions be done by at least two people and reviewed by someone else, to minimize the likelihood of errors because of the danger that inaccurate transcriptions can alter the meaning of words and phrases.

If you are looking for a project that makes a difference, why not try your hand at becoming a citizen transcriber. You can probably find a project that is right up your alley, or that will expand your knowledge in an entirely new way.

O’English is the social sciences and government information librarian at the Washington State University libraries.