Are you a history buff? Do you love reading old documents and handwritten letters from decades ago? Then you might be the perfect volunteer for the Chicago-based Newberry Library’s transcribing program.
The Newberry Library in Chicago, Illinois, gained attention from news outlets in 2017 when they called for volunteers to help them transcribe and translate religious transcripts from the 15th and 19th centuries.
The library created a project titled “Religious Change, 1450-1750.” For this project, they needed three manuscripts translated as they contained writing that hadn’t been seen anywhere else before. So they asked volunteers to go to their ‘Transcribing Faith’ online portal, sit at a computer, and translate the manuscripts.
The material ended up being pretty fascinating, like one of the texts, The Book of Magical Charms, which contained details about occult arts.
Although the specific “Religious Change” project has come to a close, the Newberry Library is still accepting help from anyone who would like to translate other historical documents!
If you take a look at their ‘Transcribing Faith’ webpage, you can find not only the Book of Magical Charms transcript but their Newberry Transcribe website as well.
There, you can scroll through tons of old letters, notes, and records dating all the way back to the 1920s that need to be transcribed.
One of the most excellent parts about this website is that anyone can do it anytime! All you have to do is select a document to work on, look closely at the document in the image viewer, and start transcribing it into a text box.
In addition, users can build upon each other’s work and create accounts on the website to save their progress.
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“Don’t worry if your work isn’t perfect or if you’re unable to complete a page, others can review your work and edit or add to your transcription later,” is written on their webpage. “Keep in mind that without your help, these handwritten pages are completely unsearchable – so any transcribed text you can provide is better than none.”
So if you have a passion for keeping history alive, this might be the perfect hobby to pick up!
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