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Archive for January, 2014

Slight delay to this week’s progress update

By Tim Causer, on 31 January 2014

This is just a very brief entry to say that we will be unable to issue the regular Friday progress update for this week, as we are currently away attending a tranScriptorium all-staff meeting. (This is a very exciting project in which we are participating, which seeks to develop solutions for the automated full-text transcription of historic manuscripts).

Many apologies in advance for any inconvenience which this may cause: we will issue the progress update on Monday 3 February, when normal service will be resumed.

Progress update, 18 to 24 January 2014

By Tim Causer, on 24 January 2014

Welcome to the progress update for the period 18 to 24 January 2014, during which time further steady progress has been made by Transcribe Bentham volunteers. 10,070 words were transcribed this week, along with a further 4,656 words of TEI XML.

6,824 manuscripts have now been transcribed or partially-transcribed, which is an increase of 35 upon last week’s total. 6,524 of these transcripts are now complete and locked after having undergone our quality-control process, up 32 on this time last week.

The more detailed state of progress is as follows:

We are also delighted to say that the digitisation of the British Library’s Bentham manuscripts is now underway, and we look forward to uploading this material and sharing it with you in the near future.

As always, thank you to everyone who has given their time and effort to Transcribe Bentham during the last seven days. It remains greatly appreciated by us all.

Progress update, 11 to 17 January 2014, and a new publication

By Tim Causer, on 17 January 2014

Welcome along to the progress update for the period 11 to 17 January 2014, during which time further steady progress has been made by Transcribe Bentham volunteers. 9,859 words were transcribed this week, along with a further 3,603 words of TEI XML.

6,789 manuscripts have now been transcribed or partially-transcribed, which is an increase of 29 on last week’s total. Of these transcripts, 6,492 (95%) are complete and have been locked after being checked by TB staff; this is also up 29 on this time last week.

The more detailed state of progress is as follows:

Elsewhere, readers might be interested in the Bentham Project’s latest publication, the Memorandoms of convict James Martin, the manuscript for which is part of Box 169 of UCL’s Bentham Papers. The Memorandoms is the only first-hand account of perhaps the most famous escape of transported convicts from Australia: on the evening of 28 March 1791, Martin, in company with eight other prisoners (including William and Mary Bryant, and their two children), stole the governor of New South Wales’s six-oared cutter. In it, they navigated the eastern and northern coasts of Australia, encountered several Aboriginal peoples, and were fortunate to survive several ferocious storms. After a journey of just over two months, they reached Kupang, West Timor, where they successfully (for a while) passed themselves off as survivors of a shipwreck. This journey of over 5,000 miles in an open boat was an astonishing feat of seamanship and endurance.

This is the first time such a detailed, annotated edition of the Memorandoms has been published, and it has never been so widely available. The document, along with an introduction by Dr Tim Causer of the Bentham Project, is now freely available to read online, or can be downloaded as a PDF. We hope you find it of some interest.

Thank you, as always, to everyone who has contributed their time to Transcribe Bentham during the last week. It remains greatly appreciated by us all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Progress update, 21 December 2013 to 10 January 2014

By Tim Causer, on 10 January 2014

Firstly, happy new year from all of us Transcribe Bentham, and we hope that all volunteers and readers had an enjoyable festive period. Since our last update, excellent progress has been made: 18,249 words have been transcribed during the past two weeks, along with a further 8,026 words of TEI XML.

6,760 manuscripts have now been transcribed or partially-transcribed, which is an increase of 114 upon the total on 20 December. Of these transcripts, 6,463 (95%) are complete after going through our quality control process, which is up 103 on two weeks ago. We anticipate that the 7,000th transcript will be worked on at some point during March, which would be a fantastic achievement on behalf of TB volunteers.

The more detailed state of progress is as follows:

Thank you, as always, to everyone who contributed to Transcribe Bentham during the last couple of weeks. It remains greatly appreciated by us all, particularly as we know how busy the festive period can be.