Regarding the selection of documents, most of these were chosen because they were already part of an ongoing project at the LVA with a built-in demographic. Transcribing the CW150 documents can re-engage the communities where these documents were originally scanned. The Gabriel's Conspiracy items were part of a HistoryPin tour and panel discussion which was well-attended and generated a lot of interest. African American Narrative is a new project which we hope will make genealogical resources searchable and accessible in new ways. In the future, the content which is up for transcription will be driven by LVA programming, public interest, but also with a keen eye towards what has the most research value. Any suggestions for documents to be transcribed can be sent to [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>. Making History is a collaborative effort, so please send us your feedback!



On the review process:



*           First, the document is transcribed and reviewed by the public on Making History: Transcribe. As noted by many previous crowdsourcing initiatives, the crowd tends to self-correct and       yields surprisingly accurate information.

*           Several of our staff members have also registered on the transcription site. They give the fully transcribed pages another view, make corrections, and mark them as "Complete."

*           From there, we export the transcription and all the metadata.

*           Another staff member proofreads the transcription a final time at this stage, preferably one with subject area and/or handwriting expertise.

*           It is then converted into a text searchable PDF and attached to the digital item in our repository (Digitool)



Of course, since the site has only just launched, we will be making improvements and streamlining the process over the next few months. Once we have a more detailed view of the entire process, I will likely write a follow-up blog post on Out Of The Box (http://www.virginiamemory.com/blogs/out_of_the_box/2014/08/19/come-on-make-some-history/)




Sonya Coleman
Digital Collections Specialist
Library of Virginia



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