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
