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Index Cards Transcription - Transcribathon July 2021 Volunteer Activity

Volunteers helped LAGANZ to correct the transcription of 4838 typewritten index cards describing our book, pamphlets and manuscript collections by correcting the optimal character recognition (OCR) text.

Our Transcribathon event ran from 10 to 24 July for volunteers across Aotearoa New Zealand and overseas, and we achieved our target in 8 days! Thanks again!

What Was Involved

As part of our digitisation initiative we scanned 7500 index cards from our card catalogue and prepared approximately 4838 to fully transcribe because these were the essential ones to incorporate into a future online database.

Digitisation is important to enable online database access to the descriptions of items in our collections; at the moment researchers must visit the Archives in Wellington or ask a curator to search for them in the card catalogue.

We used an online tool called From the Page to make it as easy as possible for volunteers to type corrections of the transcription (OCR'd) text errors as they view the picture of each scanned index card.

What's next for the 4838 index cards' data?

Our next step is to map this metadata (data describing our collection items) into a metadata schema (like a big spreadsheet) with rows and columns of data. Can you help with that? Let Gavin know at board@laganz.org.nz.

Key Steps to Getting Started

Update at 19 Oct 2021: Index card projects in From the Page are now closed for editing. So these instructions are provided for information only.

We asked volunteers to sign up to From the Page to get started on correcting index cards, as follows:

  1. Sign up to create a transcriber account at From the Page: https://fromthepage.com.

    1. Use the Sign Up To Transcribe menu.

    2. You'll be asked to create a User Name as well as to sign up with your email address.

    3. Let us know your email address and From the Page User Name by emailing us at board@laganz.org.nz. We'll also send you the Zoom meeting invites and password.

  2. Find the LAGANZ Finding Aids project in From the Page at: https://fromthepage.com/laganz/finding-aids?page=1.

  3. Select a group of index cards to start transcribing eg the "LAGANZ-MS-Only-Pt-1-Index-Cards-0101-0200" group at https://fromthepage.com/laganz/finding-aids/laganz-octavos-pt-1-index-cards-0101-0200. There are 70 "works" or groups of cards, so you may need to click through to, say, page 5 to find a group of cards that has not been started.

  4. Look for a card that hasn't been started. You'll see a "This page is not corrected, please help correct this page" message. Click on the link to "help correct" a page.

  5. Read the transcription instructions (at bottom of the Correct tab).

  6. Have a go!

  7. Each card you correct will be checked by someone else and you can leave Page Notes if you want to draw something to our attention.

Transcribathon Events via Zoom and In Person 10 to 24 July

Over two weeks from Saturday 10 July till its conclusion on Saturday 24 July volunteers helped us transcribe as many cards as possible. The cards had been digitised, but we needed volunteers to help fix the 10-15% of words that had not been correctly recognised during the optical character recognition (OCR) process.

We asked volunteers to join LAGANZ organisers in Zoom sessions on 10 July and 24 July to find out how to get started and to stay in touch with progress.

LAGANZ organisers answered questions from volunteers via Zoom and by email. The Zoom sesssions were also a good opportunity to ask our trustees and curator about the Archives. Volunteers could do cards over the two weeks or join in the final big push to complete the QA of corrected cards over a few hours on Saturday 24 July.

Volunteers were able to share their favourite cards describing collection items and joined in discussions in Zoom chat about the language we use to describe collection items and how we manage, collect and provide access to the collections. LAGANZ's curators and trustees shared (via photos and videos) some items from the collections at the Zoom sessions on 24 July.

We were excited about the opportunity to connect with volunteers all over New Zealand, as well as many from the international From the Page user community who wanted to support LGBTI+ projects. Whether its 10 or 100 cards, all contributions were welcome..

Transcribathon Schedule

We set up a series of Zoom virtual meetings/events and one Wellington in-person drop in session. We did not record the Zoom sessions (for privacy reasons), but a video link was provided to help volunteers get started. One-on-one Zoom sessions were arranged by contacting Gavin Hamilton.

Transcribathon Schedule of Zoom and Other Events
Date, Time in NZT Details

PASSED
Sat 10 Jul, 10am - 11am via Zoom

LAGANZ Transcribathon Launch
Thank you everyone who was able to join us via Zoom to find out what LAGANZ and its Transcribathon are all about, how to get started and how to stay connected over these two weeks.

This session was not recorded, but this material is available:

PASSED
Sat 10 Jul to 24 Jul - Two Weeks

Transcribe/correct index cards at home, at your own pace and in your own time in From the Page
Once signed up in From the Page, look for cards needing correction at LAGANZ Finding Aids: https://fromthepage.com/laganz/finding-aids.
Update at 24 Jul 2021: All cards have been corrected now, thank you!

PASSED
Sat 17 Jul, 10am - 1pm


Lilburn Rm, Lvl 1, Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library, cnr Aitken and Molesworth Sts, Wellington
Drop In Session for Wellington Transcribathon Volunteers
A small group joined us to help with checking the card catalogue and work together on correcting cards. It was great to meet some new volunteers in person!
PASSED
Sat 24 Jul, 10am - 11am via Zoom

LAGANZ Transcribathon Final Day Opening
Given we have already met our index card correction target, this session focused on the QA steps plus some show and tell collection items from the index cards.

Agenda:

  • Welcome and thank you to volunteers
  • How we met our correction target!
  • Show and tell items nominated by volunteers:
  • What's next for the index card data?
  • Open question and feedback time.
  • OPTIONAL live demo: QA steps for those helping with QA today

Our presentation slides in PDF format: laganz-index-cards-transcribathon-final-day-opening-slides-24-jul-2021.pdf [PDF, 2.2 MB]

PASSED
Sat 24 Jul, 4pm - 5pm via Zoom

LAGANZ Transcribathon Final Day Wrap-up
Let's celebrate our achievement and the mahi of our volunteers!

Agenda:

  • Welcome from Kevin Haunui, Chair of LAGANZ and thank you to volunteers
  • Acknowledging Rainbow Wellbeing Legacy Fund support
  • Show and tell items nominated by volunteers:
  • Future transcription projects: The Pink Triangle Index; inventories of key MS Papers.
  • Open question and feedback time.

Our presentation slides in PDF format: laganz-index-cards-transcribathon-final-day-closing-slides-24-jul-2021.pdf [PDF, 2.4 MB]

 

YouTube Videos: Getting set up | Correcting cards | QA steps

We've recorded short YouTube videos - to help you get started in From the Page and perhaps help with QA. These are available in LAGANZ's Index Cards Transcribathon playlist. You might like to Subscribe to be alerted to future videos.

Stages of Index Card Image Transcription/Correction

This might help you visualise what we were trying to achieve, with volunteers' help!

We have loaded images of index cards into From the Page ...

LAGANZ MS 82 Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) index card.

The optical character recognition (OCR) of the text in the image is not perfect.

There are corrections and formatting changes required to the text that the OCR process has extracted ...

Jlf&Lf-Ltf 1
MS
I

82
RELIGIOUS Society of Friends (Quakers).
Public Questions Committee.
Submission to the Statutes Revision
Committee concerning the Homosexual law
reform bill. Christchurch: The Society, 1985
21, MS note attached.

1. Sexual law reform - New Zealand. 2.
Homosexual law reform bill, 1985 Submissions . 3 . Christian attitudes to gays
- Quakers. I. Title.
Acc. No MS 82

.. so that we end up with corrected text looking like this:

MS
82
RELIGIOUS Society of Friends (Quakers).
Public Questions Committee.
Submission to the Statutes Revision Committee concerning the Homosexual law reform bill.
Christchurch: The Society, 1985
2l, MS note attached.
1. Sexual law reform - New Zealand.
2. Homosexual law reform bill, 1985 - Submissions.
3. Christian attitudes to gays - Quakers.
I. Title.
Acc. No MS 82.

Your help with checking that what you see on the card is transcribed correctly will make a tremendous difference!

See what we do next with the index card data - transposing it into structured data (XML and CSV) - on the page for our earlier Posters Index Cards pilot.

Contact for Information

Feel free to make personal contact with Gavin Hamilton - board@laganz.org.nz, +64 21 0200 7913 - to find out more about this activity.

If you are not already signed up, we encourage you to sign up to both of these mailing lists:

Funding Support for Digitisation from the Rainbow Wellbeing Legacy Fund

We have received in August 2020 a grant from the Rainbow Wellbeing Legacy Fund that has enabled us to fund the digitisation of our index cards and a subscription to From the Page and other tools. We are very grateful for the Fund's support.

 


 


 


Last updated: 19 Oct 2021

Lesbian and Gay Archives of New Zealand (LAGANZ) | Te Pūranga Takatāpui o Aotearoa
Alexander Turnbull Library, 70 Molesworth St, Wellington 6011
NEW ZEALAND

Curator Tel: +64 4 462 3972 | Trust Secretary Mob: +64 27 444 3961

curators@laganz.org.nz | facebook.com/kawemahara | instagram.com/kawemahara