Why should you write a newsletter for your crowdsourcing project? The biggest reason to send a newsletter for your crowdsourcing project is to keep your volunteers motivated and coming back. We live in a busy world, and a gentle reminder that your project exists and is fun to work on can reengage volunteers. There's lots of ways to write a project newsletter, but I've noticed … [Read more...] about Writing a Crowdsourcing Project Newsletter
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Hashtags for Community Building
As we touched on in our earlier post about the Smithsonian Transcription Center and their successful team of volunteer transcribers, the hashtag #volunpeers was first used by the Center's project coordinator Dr. Meghan Ferriter. In the four years since Ferriter coined the term, in April 2014, it has taken off as a popular hashtag across a wide variety of host repositories, … [Read more...] about Hashtags for Community Building
Providing Contextual Help to Transcribers in FromThePage: UCD's Irish Dialect Archive Manuscript Collection
Many transcription project owners need the ability to explain how to transcribe the special nuances of their material. FromThePage project owners have the ability to configure transcription help within FromThePage; that help can be extensive. An example of an extensive transcription help screen is in University College Dublin’s Irish Dialect Archive … [Read more...] about Providing Contextual Help to Transcribers in FromThePage: UCD's Irish Dialect Archive Manuscript Collection
Finding Fine Art and Historical Images for Social Media Uses
My new favorite way to find images for facebook and blog posts is to search the Google Arts & Culture site. (Click the magnifying glass at the top right of this page) I search for "magnifying glass" and after poking around the results find The Senses by Philippe Mercier at the Yale Center for British Art: I follow the external link and find the painting at the YCBA … [Read more...] about Finding Fine Art and Historical Images for Social Media Uses
Learn to Decipher Old Handwriting with Online and Residential Paleography Courses
Do you ever have problems deciphering the intricate handwriting of historical documents? Don't we all! There are lots of online resources to help, and we've checked them out so you can find the right one for you. Some are MOOCS (massive open online courses) offered through universities; others are web-based self-paced tutorials. If none of these work for you, … [Read more...] about Learn to Decipher Old Handwriting with Online and Residential Paleography Courses