Recently, both OpenAI and Google released new multi-modal large language models, where were immediately touted for their ability to transcribe documents. Also last week, I transcribed this document from the Library of Virginia’s collection from the Virginia Revolutionary Conventions. Let’s read it together: Whereas his Excellency John Earl of Dun- more Lieutenant and … [Read more...] about Can Multi-Modal LLMs Transcribe Historic Documents?
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Connection Makes Quality
I recently saw a presentation by Dick Kasperowski and Olof Karsvall about research they’d done on The Detective Section, a crowdsourcing project at the Swedish National Archives. Their findings contradicted some of the conventional wisdom that volunteers introduce bias into results when they bring their own subject-matter expertise to citizen science tasks, and that made me … [Read more...] about Connection Makes Quality
Guiding Transcribers: Addressing Racist Material in Crowdsourced Archival Projects
In honor of Black History Month, we asked some of the institutions who run projects uncovering the names and histories of African Americans on FromThePage the following question, "What do you tell volunteers who encounter offensive or racist material in your projects?" Sonya Coleman at Library of Virginia summed it up with a meme: From … [Read more...] about Guiding Transcribers: Addressing Racist Material in Crowdsourced Archival Projects
10 Ways AI Will Change Archives
AI is changing so fast, and so is FromThePage. Here’s a look at the AI features we currently offer. We recently hosted a webinar entitled "10 Ways AI Will Change Archives," and today, we're sharing the insights from that presentation with you. AI is a transformative force, and often scary. Today, though, we’re sharing specific examples of using AI for good – allowing more … [Read more...] about 10 Ways AI Will Change Archives
Make Review Easier Part 3: Exporting & Scanning Spreadsheets Of Data
We've been talking about review & quality control in the last couple of newsletters. Today, we're going to talk about one of the simplest ways to do a quick review for quality: scanning spreadsheets of transcribed data. Our very first field-based transcription project was the World War I Service Cards project at the Alabama Department of Archives and History. When we … [Read more...] about Make Review Easier Part 3: Exporting & Scanning Spreadsheets Of Data