As FromThePage matures, we’re getting a little more introspective. How do we keep the values we brought to this work as two scrappy software developers? If we add employees, how can we ensure they hold the same values we do? What are those values, anyway? (If you know – from observation – what we stand for, we’d love to hear it). We work on FromThePage, instead of our … [Read more...] about What is Meaningful Work?
FromThePage
Conversations at the Washington Library Podcast: Transcribing From The Page with Sara and Ben Brumfield
On April 29, 2021, Ben and Sara Brumfield sat down with Jim Ambuske, Ph.D., who leads the Center for Digital History at the Washington Library, to record an episode of Conversations at the Washington Library. In this podcast, Jim discusses how the Washington Library in Mount Vernon used FromThePage to create work-from-home transcription solutions for their team members. At the … [Read more...] about Conversations at the Washington Library Podcast: Transcribing From The Page with Sara and Ben Brumfield
Can the Crowd Create Metadata?
Crowdsourcing can be an exciting way to improve metadata and to experiment with making metadata more comprehensive. We all describe materials differently and uniquely based on our own interests, perspectives, and life experiences. How do you take crowdsourced metadata and make it useful? In the book, Metadata: Shaping Knowledge from Antiquity to the Semantic Web, … [Read more...] about Can the Crowd Create Metadata?
Marriage certificate transcription helps COVID care (!)
Liz Coelho, Director of Special Projects at the Maryland State Archives, recently sent this to her transcribers: Many thanks to you for your help with our FromThePage marriage certificate projects in 2021. Your work has made it possible for the Archives to quickly assist many people with their requests for marriage certificates. On my first day back in the new year I got a … [Read more...] about Marriage certificate transcription helps COVID care (!)
What’s the Difference Between a Crowdsourcing Volunteer and a Medieval Scribe?
I’ve been studying ways we might reduce errors--including my own!--in crowdsourced transcription projects. Part of that work has been analyzing a dataset of raw volunteer contributions to the Missouri State Archives death certificate indexing project, but another part has been reading what textual scholars have written about errors left by ancient and medieval scribes. Eugène … [Read more...] about What’s the Difference Between a Crowdsourcing Volunteer and a Medieval Scribe?