X Close

Transcribe Bentham

Home

A Participatory Initiative

Menu

Archive for March, 2012

Progress update, 24 to 30 March 2012

By Tim Causer, on 30 March 2012

Welcome to the Transcribe Bentham progress update for the period 24 to 30 March, during which time great progress continues to be made.

3,165 manuscripts have now been worked on, which is an increase of 72 upon last week’s total. That makes this week the second-busiest seven-day period—after 10 to 16 March 2012—since the week ending 4 January 2011. Tremendous stuff! Of these transcripts, 2,953 (93%) are now locked and complete, up 72 on last week. At the current rate of transcription, we should lock our 3,000th transcript very soon indeed, which is a remarkable achievement.

The more detailed state of progress is as follows:

  • Box 2: 329 manuscripts transcribed of 532 (61%)
  • Box 27: 274 of 350 (78%)
  • Box 35: 230 of 439 (52%)
  • Box 50: 52 of 92 (56%)
  • Box 51: 53 of 940 (5%)
  • Box 62: 51 of 565 (9%)
  • Box 70: 168 of 250 (48%)
  • Box 71: 559 of 665 (84%)
  • Box 72: 331 of 664 (49%)
  • Box 73: 126 of 156 (80%)
  • Box 79: 77 of 199 (38%)
  • Box 95: 45 of 147 (30%)
  • Box 96: 519 of 539 (96%)
  • Box 97: 24 of 288 (8%)
  • Box 100: 47 of 429 (10%)
  • Box 115: 242 of 307 (78%)
  • Box 139: 38 of 38 (100%)
  • Overall: 52% of the 6,005 manuscripts uploaded to the website have been transcribed thus far.

Box 72 was the most heavily transcribed this week, with 52 (7%) of its manuscripts being worked on. The recently uploaded Box 100 is also making steady progress, with 10% of its manuscripts already transcribed.

As noted elsewhere on the blog, UCL will be closed for Easter from 5 to 11 April. This will the last full progress update until 13 April, though we do intend to issue an outline update next Friday. We will not be able to check submissions received during the break, and we apologise for any inconvenience this might cause; they will be checked as soon as we return.

If you would like to find out more about the thinking behind Transcribe Bentham, and the design and running of the project, you can read ‘Transcription Maximized; Expense Minimized: Crowdsourcing and Editing The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham‘, which was published earlier in the week by Literary and Linguistic Computing. You will need to either be at a public library, university or other institution which subscribes to Oxford University Press Journals, or have a university ID and password, to download the paper from this link. We will, however, upload a pre-publication version to UCL Discovery, the College’s open-access repository of research, and will provide a link to this as soon as it is available.

Thank you, as ever, to all those who have contributed to Transcribe Bentham during the last week. It remains, as always, enormously appreciated.

UCL closure, 5 to 11 April 2012

By Tim Causer, on 27 March 2012

UCL will be close for the Easter break on 5 April and reopen on 12 April, during which time the Transcription Desk will remain fully available, though it will be largely unstaffed during this period.

The last full and normal checking of submissions before the break will take place on Friday 30 April. We intend to issue a basic progress update—as we did during the December break—on Friday 6 April. Any submissions received after this date may not be checked until UCL reopens when normal service will be resumed, and we apologise in advance for any inconvenience caused.

If volunteers have any queries about these arrangements, please do contact us before 5 April.

In the meantime, we would like to thank all our volunteers, Facebook and Twitter followers, and readers of the blog for all their support, efforts and interest and hope you all have a good break.

Progress update, 17 to 23 March 2012

By Tim Causer, on 23 March 2012

Welcome to a slightly earlier than usual progress update for the last seven days, the period 17 to 23 March 2012. The rate of transcription has slowed a little during the last week – perhaps unsurprising, given the furious pace of work over the last couple of months. Yet we have also increased our percentage of completed transcripts during the last week.

3,091 manuscripts have now been worked on, which is an increase of 34 transcripts on last week’s total. It is quite striking that what is a supposedly ‘quiet’ week still produces so many transcripts, or an approximate 17,000 words plus XML mark-up. Of these transcripts, 2,881 (93%) are now complete, up 45 on last week.

The more detailed state of progress is as follows:

  • Box 2: 329 manuscripts transcribed of 532 (61%)
  • Box 27: 268 of 350 (76%)
  • Box 35: 229 of 439 (52%)
  • Box 50: 52 of 92 (56%)
  • Box 51: 53 of 940 (5%)
  • Box 62: 51 of 565 (9%)
  • Box 70: 168 of 250 (48%)
  • Box 71: 559 of 665 (84%)
  • Box 72: 280 of 664 (42%)
  • Box 73: 125 of 156 (80%)
  • Box 79: 77 of 199 (38%)
  • Box 95: 45 of 147 (30%)
  • Box 96: 519 of 539 (96%)
  • Box 97: 23 of 288 (7%)
  • Box 100: 33 of 429 (7%)
  • Box 115: 242 of 307 (78%)
  • Box 139: 38 of 38 (100%)
  • Overall: 51% of the 6,005 manuscripts uploaded to the website have been transcribed thus far.

Box 72 was the most heavily transcribed during the last seven days, dealing mostly with Bentham’s thoughts on punishment.

Thanks, as ever, to all those volunteers who have given their time and effort so generously to the project during the last week. It is hugely appreciated by all at Transcribe Bentham.

Progress update, 10 to 16 March 2012

By Tim Causer, on 17 March 2012

Welcome to the progress update for the period 10 to 16 March 2012, during which time Transcribe Bentham volunteers have achieved another landmark. Apologies for the delay in issuing this week’s update, as it has been an extremely busy week at the Bentham Project.

3,057 manuscripts have now been worked on, up 82 on last week’s total; this is the biggest seven-day increase since the week ending 4 January 2011. The 3,000-transcript mark has now been comfortably broken, and congratulations to volunteer Diane Folan for transcribing her 1,000th manuscript, and volunteer JFoxe for having transcribed her 500th manuscript in little over six months. Volunteer Lea Stern isn’t far off the 500-transcript mark either. Remarkable stuff all round.

Of these transcripts, 2,836 (92%) are locked and complete, an increase of 78 on last week. We should be in a position to lock our 3,000th transcript in around three weeks’ time.

The more detailed state of progress is as follows:

  • Box 2: 329 manuscripts transcribed of 532 (61%)
  • Box 27: 265 of 350 (75%)
  • Box 35: 228 of 439 (51%)
  • Box 50: 52 of 92 (56%)
  • Box 51: 53 of 940 (5%)
  • Box 62: 51 of 565 (9%)
  • Box 70: 167 of 250 (47%)
  • Box 71: 558 of 665 (83%)
  • Box 72: 260 of 664 (39%)
  • Box 73: 125 of 156 (80%)
  • Box 79: 76 of 199 (38%)
  • Box 95: 45 of 147 (30%)
  • Box 96: 519 of 539 (96%)
  • Box 97: 23 of 288 (7%)
  • Box 100: 26 of 429 (6%)
  • Box 115: 242 of 307 (78%)
  • Box 139: 38 of 38 (100%)
  • Overall: 50% of the 6,005 manuscripts uploaded to the website have been transcribed thus far.

Boxes 71, 72 and 100 saw the most activity during the last week, and a number of boxes are closing in on completion.

We were delighted to see that the Public Record Office of Victoria in Melbourne have utilised and customised the software developed for Transcribe Bentham by the University of London Computer Centre, for their own pilot transcription project. We heartily recommend that you take a look, and if you wish to use the code for the TB transcription interface, you can find it here.

Thank you, as ever, to all those who have given their time so generously during the last week, and who have helped Transcribe Bentham reach its latest landmark. We remain enormously grateful.

3000 up!

By Tim Causer, on 12 March 2012

Transcribe Bentham has reached another landmark, as volunteers have now transcribed, to a very high standard, over 3,000 complex and challenging manuscripts since the project went live to the public in September 2010. This is a tremendous achievement, and is an estimated 1.5 million to 2 million words (plus extensive TEI mark-up). We are extremely proud of our volunteer transcribers (see the most prolific contributors here) for all of their efforts in widening access to the collection for all.

We are enormously grateful. Here’s to the next 3000 transcripts!