So you have some handwritten manuscripts, but you're not sure where to get started because they are difficult to read? Look no further! Some of the reasons that handwriting may prove a stumbling block to those working on transcription projects include: Archaic hands Unknown abbreviations Documents that are multilingual or in an unknown language Lack of … [Read more...] about Start Reading Old Handwriting: Some Recommended Books
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Finding Transcribers for the Yaquina Lighthouse Project
One of our recent projects on FromThePage is the Yaquina Lighthouse Collection of documents from the National Archive. I helped the team at Yaquina brainstorm ways to publicize their project and wanted to share that process here as well. This was in addition to their existing Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram publicity. I would contact the people/groups you find below with … [Read more...] about Finding Transcribers for the Yaquina Lighthouse Project
Facebook versus Twitter for Crowdsourcing Document Transcription
Last week, I posted a new document to FromThePage and inadvertently conducted a little experiment on how to publicize crowdsourcing. Sometime in the early 1970s, my uncle was on a hunting trip when he was driven into an old, abandoned building by a thunderstorm. While waiting for the weather to moderate, he found a few old documents -- two envelopes bearing Confederate … [Read more...] about Facebook versus Twitter for Crowdsourcing Document Transcription
GoogleFight Resolves Unclear Handwriting
I've spent the last couple of weeks as a FromThePage user working seriously on annotation. This mainly involves identifying the people and events mentioned in Julia Brumfield's 1918 diary and writing short articles to appear as hyperlinked pages within the website, or be printed as footnotes following the first mention of the subject. Although my primary resource is a … [Read more...] about GoogleFight Resolves Unclear Handwriting