CRKN is thrilled to announce the launch of a transcription crowdsourcing project for the Héritage collection, part of the Canadiana collections. The project was developed to provide a national engagement opportunity for staff at member institutions who are working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and to enhance the metadata and discoverability of the Héritage collection.
The Héritage collection includes 41 million pages of archival records, approximately 60% of which are handwritten. Typical Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software, used to create searchable versions of typewritten documents such as books and newspapers, cannot be used with handwritten text because handwriting varies widely in shape and style. Manual transcription of handwritten documents can be used instead to provide full-text search capability and additional metadata for digitized records.
Participating institutions will use a transcription crowdsourcing tool developed by CRKN Associate Member Our Digital World to transcribe four collections contained in Héritage, which include both English and French materials. These transcriptions will be used by the CRKN team to enhance full-text search and metadata for these collections.
The project launches today with the participation of staff from 12 member institutions. If your institution would like to join the project, please identify a project coordinator and email digitization@crkn.ca stating your interest. There is no minimum time commitment and participants are welcome to contribute as much or as little time as is appropriate.
CRKN would like to thank members Our Digital World and Library and Archives Canada for their invaluable support as this project was developed.
For more information, please visit the CRKN website or contact Francesca Brzezicki at digitization@crkn.ca.