Listed in no priority order, below are a number of annotated links and comments, gleaned from us -- the Code4Lib mailing list, describing the possibility of crowdsourcing transcriptions. It seems as if FromThePage and a number of Omeka plugins float to the top when it comes to recommendations:

  * Amanda French <[log in to unmask]> says, "I will say
    that it's usually not so simple as putting up the documents and
    letting people transcribe them: there's a fair amount of
    publicity and community management that has to happen before
    things get transcribed. Two really effective strategies in the
    absence of a dedicated transcription community manager are 1)
    to hold "transcribathon" events, and 2) to partner with
    teachers who'll ask their students to do transcriptions as
    class exercises. Transcribing documents is always a fantastic
    thing for students to do: it sparks their interest and gets
    them to really engage with primary sources in a way they rarely
    get to do."

  * Ben Brumfield <[log in to unmask]> - An acknowledged expert
    on the area of crowdsourcing transcriptions with a number of
    links from which to read:
      o YouTube video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNrTC4Y0_dk
      o older blog entries - http://manuscripttranscription.blogspot.co.uk
      o new blog entries - http://content.fromthepage.com

  * Crowd Sourced Indexing (https://csindexing.com/) - Used more
    along the lines for genealogical research

  * DIY History (http://diyhistory.lib.uiowa.edu/) - A set of
    transcriptions hosted by the University of Iowa and supported by
    a set of locally written Omeka 2 theme.

  * Freedom on the Move (http://freedomonthemove.org/) - Outlines
    how a database of content will be crowdsourced surrounding the
    topic of fugitives from North American slavery

  * FromThePage (https://github.com/benwbrum/fromthepage) - "A
    wiki-like application for crowdsourcing transcription of
    handwritten documents", and also available as a fee-based hosted
    solution (https://www.fromthepage.com)

  * Incite (http://incite.cs.vt.edu/m4j/incite/) - Yet another
    Omeka plugin, but I can not really find from where to download
    it.

  * Scribe (http://scribeproject.github.io/) - "Scribe is a
    framework for crowdsourcing the transcription of text-based
    documents, particularly documents that are not well suited for
    Optical Character Recognition. It is a collaboration between
    Zooniverse and The New York Public Library Labs with generous
    support from The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH),
    Office of Digital Humanities."

  * Scripto (http://scripto.org) - "A free, open source tool
    enabling community transcriptions of document and multimedia
    files. Scripto brings the power of MediaWiki to your collections.
    Designed to allow members of the public to transcribe a range of
    different kinds of files, Scripto will increase your content’s
    findability while building your user community through active
    engagement"; an Omeka plugin

  * Smithsonian Institution's experience documented at a number
    of links:
      o project page - https://transcription.si.edu/
      o about crowdsourcing - https://siarchives.si.edu/blog/tag/crowdsourcing
      o more about crowdsourcing - http://bit.ly/2rBDN1D
      o formally published article - http://bit.ly/2rRqCcy

  * Transcribe (http://transcribe.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca) - A set of
    transcriptions hosted by the Royal BC Museum

  * Transcription Tools: a survey by Katie Mika, NDSR Resident
    (http://bit.ly/2rgWtAK) - A list of apropos tools; "To this end
    one of my first tasks when I arrived at MCZ (Museum of
    Comparative Zoology) was to familiarize myself with the current
    landscape of tools for building crowdsourcing, citizen science,
    and manuscript transcription projects."

  * Why transcribe
    (https://library.mcz.harvard.edu/blog/why-transcribe) - To
    paraphrase, "Transcription helps bridge the gap between
    digitization and use by enhancing access through full text
    search, enriching metadata collection, and opening collections to
    digital textual analysis."

  * Wikisource (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Main_Page) -
    Apparently functioning like a wiki, enables writers/transcribers
    to do their good work.


Thank you to all of you who replied. Very helpful!  code4lib++

--
Eric Lease Morgan