Crowdsourcing is a method that has been effectively used to pool the knowledge and skills of large numbers of online volunteers for the creation of information resources utilized by historians, genealogists, and scientists. In recent years, archivists have begun to crowdsource the transcription of their handwritten records. Transcription of such records has traditionally been completed by professional transcribers who are skilled in reading multiple handwriting styles, knowledgeable about the creators and historical context of the records, and can interpret varying record formats and genres. However, increasingly limited resources of time and money have made traditional transcription more difficult to accomplish.
This paper evaluates the crowdsourcing of transcriptions under three major archival principles: processing, accessibility, and outreach. Crowdsourcing is one processing solution to backlogs of archival records requiring transcription. There are both human and technical issues requiring resolution in the production of transcriptions by online volunteers. Transcription of records results in increased accessibility on multiple levels; transcribed records are: 1) more readable, 2) keyword searchable in databases. Crowdsourcing transcriptions results in greater awareness of the archives being transcribed in the public and among potential users. A final archival principle, preservation, is only briefly discussed due to the limited data available on how crowdsourcing transcriptions has affected the continued use of original records.
The numerous crowdsourced transcription projects now underway in the field of archives will provide an experiential component to this paper’s analysis. Crowdsourced transcription projects to be examined include, among others, Transcribe Bentham, Ancestry.com’s World Archives Project, and the Papers of the War Department
