Today’s guest post is from Annette Nakshbendi, a Librarian-in-Residence in the Digital Content Management Section at the Library of Congress. How might a Library of Congress digital resource spark classroom discussion that reaches beyond a primary source’s content and context? You may have used the Library’s digital collections to help history “come alive” for students. …
Category: By the People Transcription Program
The crowdsourced transcription lifecycle – from conception to retirement
Today’s guest post is from Lauren Algee, a Senior Collections Specialist in the Digital Content Management Section and a By the People community manager. After years of service from thousands of volunteers, some of the oldest completed By the People crowdsourced transcription campaigns are celebrating their retirement! This week, the By the People team retired 10 …
Volunteer Vignette: Student and Teacher team up to transcribe Federal Theatre Project playbills
In today’s post, By the People community manager Abby Shelton interviews two By the People volunteers, Tina and Alexandra, who paired up to transcribe Federal Theatre Project playbills! Tina was a student at the Emma Willard School in 2022 and already a By the People volunteer when she recruited her math teacher, Alexandra, to help transcribe …
Volunteer Vignette: Transcribing Spanish history
In today’s post, Abby Shelton interviews a By the People volunteer, Claude, who has gone above and beyond! By the People is a crowdsourced transcription program launched in 2018 at the Library of Congress. Volunteer-created transcriptions are used to make digitized collections more accessible and discoverable on loc.gov. You can read our other Volunteer Vignettes on the Signal here and here. Abby: What motivates you to …
Do volunteer transcriptions improve search and discovery in loc.gov?
Today’s guest post is from Abby Shelton, a Digital Collections Specialist and By the People Community Manager in the Digital Content Management Section at the Library of Congress. How do people use crowdsourced transcriptions? Do they drive increased traffic and engagement to our digital collections? What kinds of activity do transcriptions of handwritten documents facilitate? …
Celebrating Four Years of By the People
Today’s guest post is from Abby Shelton, a Digital Collections Specialist and By the People Community Manager in the Digital Content Management Section at the Library of Congress. Happy fourth birthday to By the People! To celebrate we are highlighting some of the best parts of the last year. Interested in our previous anniversary posts? Check out […]
Summer Suffrage Transcription Challenge Wrap-up
Today’s guest post is from Abby Shelton, a Digital Collections Specialist in the Digital Content Management Section. By the People volunteers completed over 9,000 pages this summer to meet our summer suffrage challenge! Our aim was to finish reviewing transcriptions for the National American Women Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and the Blackwell Family Papers campaigns. And […]
LC Labs is Celebrating Five Years!
LC Labs turns 5!
Volunteer Vignette: The Youngstown State University Transcribing Club
In today’s post, Abby Shelton interviews By the People volunteer and Youngstown State University student Julie Centofanti who has gone above and beyond! Julie started a Transcribing Club at YSU in 2020 to help fellow students fulfill a service requirement, build community, and have fun. She was one of two students to win a 2022 […]
Staff transcriber spotlight: Enjoy being curious!
In today’s post, Abby Shelton interviews a By the People contributor and recently retired Library of Congress staff member, Jan Lancaster, who has gone above and beyond! Jan transcribed and reviewed thousands of Clara Barton pages early in the pandemic as part of a telework project. In this post we asked Jan to reflect on her contributions […]