People often worry about the quality of crowdsourced transcriptions – and we get it. Strangers, from the internet, working on your material? Yikes! But here’s the deal: many of them won’t be strangers long. The intrinsic motivation our volunteers have and their understanding of how important your material is to historians and genealogists, makes them take a lot of care – more, … [Read more...] about Make Reviewing Easier
newsletter
How Good Is Good Enough? Reviewing Transcriptions.
How good is good enough for your transcription project? We all have a tendency to want things to be “perfect”. Some of us even have a legal obligation for things to be “good”. But humans aren’t perfect. We’ve talked about the errors medieval scribes made transcribing – and they were professionals! Humans today also make mistakes. So, how much effort do you put into finding and … [Read more...] about How Good Is Good Enough? Reviewing Transcriptions.
Advice from Archives for Black Lives
How do you handle racist language in your archives? This is, unfortunately, a perennial issue. The Archives for Black Lives group in 2019 published Anti-Racist Description Resources. While you should read the whole thing (especially if you have materials pertaining to slavery), I wanted to pull out some practical bits to share with you: Consider your audience and the … [Read more...] about Advice from Archives for Black Lives
How To Wrap Up A Transcription Project
Let’s talk about what happens after crowdsourcing projects are done. There are two things to think about here: what happens to the volunteer community, and what happens to the data? In this newsletter we’re going to dive deep into the first. Just like we have a responsibility not to waste volunteers’ labor, successful projects recognize that volunteers make social … [Read more...] about How To Wrap Up A Transcription Project
Crowdsourcing Project or Crowdsourcing Program?
Are you running -- or do you want to run -- a crowdsourcing project or a crowdsourcing program? They are different! We’ve noticed over the years that folks have different attitudes and approaches to crowdsourcing projects. Some do a single project and are done – at least until the next research question or grant funding comes along. Others invest in a … [Read more...] about Crowdsourcing Project or Crowdsourcing Program?