TRANSCRIBE BENTHAMa participatory initiative

Franny GaedeINF 385T: Introduction to Digital Humanities

October 8, 2012

what is it?

crowdsourced transcription,

encoding of the philosopher Jeremy

Bentham’s (1748-1832) papers using

MediaWiki software

what is it?

inter-departmental project at the

University College London

an open access initiative

what is it?

will be uploaded to UCL’s digital Bentham Papers repository and presented alongside

high resolution image files

<- virtual auto-icon

meaning, medium, & message

this collaborative encoding work could

only be completed online

meaning, medium, & message

transcription is completed by mostly anonymous volunteer

editors

4,424 folios transcribed

meaning, medium, & message

interested in paleography?

literature? philosophy? transcription?

meaning, medium, & message

transcriptions will feed ongoing projects

accessibility & sustainability

open access, open sourcehttp://code.google.com/p/tb-transcription-desk/

accessibility & sustainability

accessibility issues: reCaptcha, editing has a high

learning curve

credit

administratorsmoney

participants

documentation

getting started & introductory

encoding videos

documentation

extensivetranscription

guidelines

documentation

blog updated weekly with statistics, project

news

the Benthamometer

associated scholarship

150+ blog posts, articles, talks,

and announcements

moving forward

$538,000 grant from the Andrew

W. Mellon Foundation

major goal:redesigning the

transcription desk

useful & compelling

image credits

Slide 2: http://www.transcribe-bentham.da.ulcc.ac.uk/td/skins/bentham-modern/TB-logo.gifSlide 3: http://digitool-b.lib.ucl.ac.uk:8881/exlibris/dtl/u3_1/dtle/www_r_eng/icon/bentham-large.jpgSlide 4: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Bentham-Project/who/autoicon/Virtual_Auto_IconSlide 5: http://www.transcribe-bentham.da.ulcc.ac.uk/td/index.php?title=JB/002/384/001&action=editSlides 6 & 7: http://www.transcribe-bentham.da.ulcc.ac.uk/td/Transcribe_BenthamSlide 8: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/collected-works-of-jeremy-bentham-luke-osullivan/1102436737Slides 9 & 10: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:MediaWiki_logosSlide 11: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/transcribe-bentham/people/, http://www.transcribe-bentham.da.ulcc.ac.uk/td/Transcribe_BenthamSlide 12: http://www.transcribe-bentham.da.ulcc.ac.uk/td/Getting_StartedSlide 13: http://www.transcribe-bentham.da.ulcc.ac.uk/td/Help:Transcription_GuidelinesSlide 14: http://www.transcribe-bentham.da.ulcc.ac.uk/td/Transcribe_BenthamSlide 15: http://beatl.barnard.columbia.edu/amciv/images.htmlSlide 16: http://www.transcribe-bentham.da.ulcc.ac.uk/td/JB/051/285/002