Crowdsourced transcription has grown in popularity as a tool for generating transcribed data and public engagement. This method of making digitized materials available on online platforms designed for volunteers to transcribe content works particularly well with science and historical materials. A well-designed site can offer volunteers a chance to interact with collections while providing the cultural institution with a new access point for researchers in the form of searchable text; a well-designed program of engagement can support sustained activity and unexpected positive outcomes. Many questions remain about how best to engage the public and the quality of resulting transcription. Many institutions design their sites to provide carefully structured experiences for volunteers. These projects organize materials around a research goal or subject and often provide detailed templates for the transcription. By fashioning a highly structured experience, are we fully engaging volunteers to interact with the materials? What happens if an institution creates an online environment that allows volunteers more choices and control? Would this affect the online community and transcription output? And what would be the impact of a structured engagement?
Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to discuss three projects from three institutions that are dealing with challenges with natural sciences field documentation. Each is working to create the collection, item and data-level description required so that researchers can fully use the data to study how biodiversity has changed over time and space. Libraries, archives and museums recognize the need to make content searchable across material type. To create online catalogs that would make this possible, ideally, all records would describe one item. Museums and libraries describe their materials at the item level; however, archives must balance the need to describe the collection as a whole alongside needs of collection materials that may require more description to reconnect with library and museum items. There is a growing determination inside of archives to increase this flow of data, particularly for the natural sciences, by creating workflows that provide additional description to make these data discoverable. This process is a bit like drilling into the earth: each level must be described before the next can be dealt with.Design/methodology/approach -The piece describes challenges, approaches and workflows of three institutions developing deeper levels of description for archival materials that will be made available online to a specialized audience. It also describes the methods developed so that the material's data can eventually be accessed at a more granular level and linked to related resources.Findings -Current systems, schema and standards are adapted as necessary, and the natural sciences archival community is still working to develop best practices. However, they are getting much closer through the collaboration made possible through grants in the recent years.Originality/value -The work described in this paper is ongoing, and best practices resulting from the work are still under development.
In 2004, Smithsonian Libraries acquired the mixed-format Russell E. Train Africana Collection for its special collections division. This collection contained items that had broad public appeal and significant historical value. The collection's diversity of materials has been a source of excitement and challenge since Smithsonian Libraries acquired it in 2004. Judge Russell E. Train created the collection around his decades-long fascination with the history of exploration and wildlife in Africa.
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