POST: Explore, Transcribe and Tag at Crowd.loc.gov!

In a recent post, Lauren Algee (Library of Congress) highlights the Library of Congress’s new crowdsourcing platform, crowd.loc.gov.

Crowd.loc.gov invites the public to volunteer to transcribe (type) and tag with keywords digitized images of text materials from the Library’s collections. Volunteers will journey through history first-hand and help the Library while gaining new skills – like learning how to analyze primary sources or read cursive.

Finalized transcripts will be made available on the Library’s website, improving access to handwritten and typed documents that computers cannot accurately translate without human intervention. The enhanced access will occur through better readability and keyword searching of documents and through greater compatibility with accessibility technologies, such as screen readers used by people with low vision.

Projects include letters from the public to Abraham Lincoln, Clara Barton’s diaries, and the papers of Mary Church Terrell, a founder of the NAACP.