![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Transcribing Smithsonian Stuff
Jun. 9th, 2018 03:58 pmThe Smithsonian has this website where they post scans of handwritten notes from the 19th Century and people online can transcribe them so that they can be searched and stuff, making them far more useful to scholars. I've been doing this recently a little bit at a time with their collection of Freedmen's Bureau papers. (I think maybe the Library of Congress or National Archives or something has a similar program?)
Anyway, it's been interesting, and here are my thoughts.
1) Wow, this is disorganized. I've been occasionally swinging by Distributed Proofreaders for decades (the website that handles scanning, proofreading, formatting, and so on, for Project Gutenberg), and their guidelines are extremely clear and specific, with lots of examples so there are VERY few times when you are unsure of what to do. The Smithsonian has guidelines, but there are quite a number of times where I've had a question that the rules don't answer, so I just shrug and make my best guess. Which means that things aren't standard, which means that whoever's finalizing stuff has a lot more to do than if they gave more detailed guidelines. OTOH, they have an actual paid staff, not just a cadre of loyal and committed volunteers, so maybe that affects things?
2) Related, there doesn't seem to be any vetting for who reviews transcribed documents? Like, all you need is an account which takes about 5 minutes to set up. You don't need a certain amount of experience with the project or anything. It's not like you need to have experience with the project or the way the Smithsonian wants things done or anything. So if there's a document where there's something atypical and the transcriber didn't know how to handle it, chances are the reviewer won't either. Which does not strike me as ideal.
3) My cursive-reading skills are a lot worse than I thought. Also, people in the 19th Century had worse handwriting than I've assumed they did.
4) I don't get people who finish transcribing a document and then press the "save" button but not the "mark completed" button.
5) It's interesting to go through things and see all these primary sources, and it is very satisfying to know you are helping the preservation and accessibility of history.
Anyway, it's been interesting, and here are my thoughts.
1) Wow, this is disorganized. I've been occasionally swinging by Distributed Proofreaders for decades (the website that handles scanning, proofreading, formatting, and so on, for Project Gutenberg), and their guidelines are extremely clear and specific, with lots of examples so there are VERY few times when you are unsure of what to do. The Smithsonian has guidelines, but there are quite a number of times where I've had a question that the rules don't answer, so I just shrug and make my best guess. Which means that things aren't standard, which means that whoever's finalizing stuff has a lot more to do than if they gave more detailed guidelines. OTOH, they have an actual paid staff, not just a cadre of loyal and committed volunteers, so maybe that affects things?
2) Related, there doesn't seem to be any vetting for who reviews transcribed documents? Like, all you need is an account which takes about 5 minutes to set up. You don't need a certain amount of experience with the project or anything. It's not like you need to have experience with the project or the way the Smithsonian wants things done or anything. So if there's a document where there's something atypical and the transcriber didn't know how to handle it, chances are the reviewer won't either. Which does not strike me as ideal.
3) My cursive-reading skills are a lot worse than I thought. Also, people in the 19th Century had worse handwriting than I've assumed they did.
4) I don't get people who finish transcribing a document and then press the "save" button but not the "mark completed" button.
5) It's interesting to go through things and see all these primary sources, and it is very satisfying to know you are helping the preservation and accessibility of history.
