Smithsonian Institution Transcription Center in Beta

We launched the Smithsonian Digital Volunteers Transcription Center Friday 21 June as a collaborative, crowdsourced process that aims to bring digitized collections out from archives and museums. We are inviting our SERIOUSLY AMAZING audiences to help us unlock their stories by transcribing and reviewing their contents – to make them more accessible, searchable, and open.

This is another outstanding opportunity to make webs of knowledge and learn about the connections between collections. Please jump in and help where you can!

**UPDATE** (14 October): The Transcription Center is fully back in business with new features to launch shortly – while many projects have been moved to completion, there are still plenty of pages to transcribe and review. Join the community of digital volunteers!

My role has involved advising on use for communities of practice, understanding crowdsourcing capabilities, and developing coherent narratives for the pieces – rather than technical development – but I welcome feedback on usability, design, and any other “would be nice.”

Feel free to transcribe and offer feedback if you have thoughts to share! The service is still in beta and we are constantly integrating what we learn from users. Thanks for allowing me to share this successful first step in our transcription process – more to follow…