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Category: By the People Transcription Program

Douglass Day 2024 promotional image of Douglass, with a dusty rose background.

An Outpouring of Love for Douglass Day 2024

Posted by: Carlyn Osborn

Today’s guest post is from Lauren Algee, a Senior Digital Collections Specialist in the Digital Content Management Section and a By the People community manager.** Douglass Day 2024 marked the busiest day in the history of By the People, the Library of Congress’s crowdsourced transcription program. The transcribe-a-thon for the Frederick Douglass Papers was groundbreaking …

community managers carlyn osborn, lauren algee, and abby shelton, in the great hall at the library of congress

Celebrating 5 Years of By the People

Posted by: Carlyn Osborn

It’s that time again: another By the People anniversary! By the People (BtP), the Library of Congress crowdsourced transcription program, is taking a moment this winter to look back on how we’ve grown and celebrate our 5th year! As we’ve shared in earlier birthday celebrations, BtP was originally incubated in 2018 by the LC Labs team and …

Centering Digital Collection Users: An Interview with Lauren Algee

Posted by: Trevor Owens

I’m excited to share this interview with Lauren Algee, one of my colleagues in the Digital Services Directorate here at the Library of Congress. My hope that interviews like this help to spread awareness about the background, experience, and interests of the people that support the Library of Congress. Along with that, I think it’s …

1912 Photo shows a crowd of girls waving handkerchiefs and smiling; possibly cheering.

Supporting Social-Emotional Learning Activities with “By the People” Transcriptions

Posted by: Carlyn Osborn

Today’s guest post is from Annette Nakshbendi, a Librarian-in-Residence in the Digital Content Management Section at the Library of Congress. How might a Library of Congress digital resource spark classroom discussion that reaches beyond a primary source’s content and context? You may have used the Library’s digital collections to help history “come alive” for students. …

Black and white campaign images for Susan B. Anthony Papers and the Elizabeth Cady Stanton Papers.

The crowdsourced transcription lifecycle – from conception to retirement

Posted by: Carlyn Osborn

Today’s guest post is from Lauren Algee, a Senior Collections Specialist in the Digital Content Management Section and a By the People community manager. After years of service from thousands of volunteers, some of the oldest completed By the People crowdsourced transcription campaigns are celebrating their retirement! This week, the By the People team retired 10 …

Dozens of squares, each with its own individual color or shade, lined up in rows and columns

Volunteer Vignette: Student and Teacher team up to transcribe Federal Theatre Project playbills

Posted by: Carlyn Osborn

In today’s post, By the People community manager Abby Shelton interviews two By the People volunteers, Tina and Alexandra, who paired up to transcribe Federal Theatre Project playbills! Tina was a student at the Emma Willard School in 2022 and already a By the People volunteer when she recruited her math teacher, Alexandra, to help transcribe …

Volunteer Vignette: Transcribing Spanish history

Posted by: Carlyn Osborn

In today’s post, Abby Shelton interviews a By the People volunteer, Claude, who has gone above and beyond! By the People is a crowdsourced transcription program launched in 2018 at the Library of Congress. Volunteer-created transcriptions are used to make digitized collections more accessible and discoverable on loc.gov. You can read our other Volunteer Vignettes on the Signal here and here. Abby: What motivates you to …

Dozens of squares, each with its own individual color or shade, lined up in rows and columns

Do volunteer transcriptions improve search and discovery in loc.gov?

Posted by: Tracee Haupt

Today’s guest post is from Abby Shelton, a Digital Collections Specialist and By the People Community Manager in the Digital Content Management Section at the Library of Congress. How do people use crowdsourced transcriptions? Do they drive increased traffic and engagement to our digital collections? What kinds of activity do transcriptions of handwritten documents facilitate? …

Dozens of squares, each with its own individual color or shade, lined up in rows and columns

Celebrating Four Years of By the People

Posted by: Tracee Haupt

Today’s guest post is from Abby Shelton, a Digital Collections Specialist and By the People Community Manager in the Digital Content Management Section at the Library of Congress. Happy fourth birthday to By the People! To celebrate we are highlighting some of the best parts of the last year. Interested in our previous anniversary posts? Check out …