Crowdsourcing at the Library of Congress Update
Library of Congress sent this bulletin at 04/03/2019 05:53 PM EDTYou are subscribed to Crowdsourcing at the Library of Congress from the Library of Congress.
Our first completed By the People campaign and ways to get in touch
Hello By the People people! We have some fun updates for you this week! Baseball news, improved how-to instructions, an invitation to join in the conversation, and some pretty impressive numbers. Read on!
It's Outta here! A Branch Rickey home run
Volunteers transcribed all 1,926 Branch Rickey baseball scouting reports in just four months! In March we celebrated Opening Day by publishing all of those transcriptions on the Library's main website where they allow for keyword search and open new avenues of access for baseball fans and researchers. The data is also available for download in bulk. Learn more about this collection and the bulk data in this blogpost. You can also read an article about the project and the publication of the Rickey data by Washington Post writer Scott Allen. Congratulations everyone who contributed to this Campaign!
Improving instructions
We're pleased to announce some changes to the "How-to-Transcribe" and "How-to-Review" pages in the Help Center, as well as the "Quick Tips" available from the transcription page. We hope these answer some common questions and make instructions easier to understand and use. Thanks everyone who was in touch via History Hub, email, or Twitter to share questions and comments, or who took our short survey last month. Your feedback lets us know what works (and doesn't!) so we can improve the experience of transcribing, reviewing, and tagging Library of Congress documents.
History Hub office hours
We're instituting office hours on History Hub, our By the People discussion forum! Join us for real-time conversation on Wednesday April 17th, 3pm-4pm, Eastern Time. If there's popular demand we may add another slot each month.
We heard through the recent survey that it can be tough to find and use History Hub. So this week we're sharing a little more about what History Hub is and how to get started.
History Hub is a reference and discussion forum created by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and used by several federal agencies, including the Library of Congress. Anyone can read posts on History Hub, and registered users can post. The agencies have dedicated reference staff available on the website to answer your research questions. To create an account, visit the History Hub registration page.
Federal staff on History Hub produce blog posts about frequently asked questions, and curate discussion areas that may be of interest. A few few examples of blog posts, discussion threads, and community discussion boards: "Immigration and Naturalization Records: Where are they?"; "Searching for transcribed materials on loc.gov"; "Presidential Records", "Women's Rights and Suffrage", and the more general "Researchers Help".
By the People has its own community within History Hub called Crowd, where you can ask specific questions or share about the project and the things you transcribe or review. Existing threads and questions can be searched. It's a great place to look if you can't find an answer in the Help Center. Someone may have asked your question already, and received a reply.
History Hub is a moderated site. When you post a message it is reviewed by a moderator to ensure it is civil and free from self-promotion and spam. We check messages during business hours Monday to Friday.
Anyone can ask or answer questions. We love it when volunteers help one another out! Sometimes volunteers ask questions that are best answered by a subject specialist. By the People Community Managers bring these questions to the attention of the relevant curators.
Hope to see you and your questions on History Hub soon!
By the People by the numbers
Pages started: 42,541
Pages needing review: 30,474
Pages completed: 10,896
