Progress update, 22 to 28 February 2014
By Tim Causer, on 28 February 2014
Welcome to the progress update for the period 22 to 28 February, during which time volunteers have not just broken the 7,000-transcript barrier, but smashed through it at a rate of knots. 17,888 words of Bentham text have been transcribed during the last seven days, along with a further 7,504 words of TEI-XML.
7,060 manuscripts have now been transcribed or partially-transcribed, which is an increase of 71 on last week’s total. Of these transcripts, 6,734 (95%) are complete and locked after passing our checking process, up 75 since the last progress report.
The more detailed state of progress is as follows:
- Box 1: 59 manuscripts transcribed of 794 (7%)
- Box 2: 464 of 753 (61%)
- Box 5: 145 of 290 (50%)
- Box 15: 13 of 914 (1%)
- Box 27: 350 of 350 (COMPLETE)
- Box 34: 2 of 398 (1%)
- Box 35: 286 of 439 (65%)
- Box 36: 0 of 418 (0%)
- Box 41: 69 of 528 (12%)
- Box 42: 54 of 910 (5%)
- Box 50: 152 of 198 (76%)
- Box 51: 370 of 940 (39%)
- Box 62: 55 of 565 (10%)
- Box 70: 295 of 350 (84%)
- Box 71: 663 of 663 (COMPLETE)
- Box 72: 612 of 664 (92%)
- Box 73: 151 of 151 (COMPLETE)
- Box 79: 199 of 199 (COMPLETE)
- Box 95: 122 of 147 (82%)
- Box 96: 528 of 539 (97%)
- Box 97: 71 of 296 (23%)
- Box 98: 214 of 499 (42%)
- Box 100: 182 of 422 (41%)
- Box 107: 456 of 538 (84%)
- Box 115: 279 of 307 (89%)
- Box 116: 484 of 864 (55%)
- Box 117: 128 of 853 (10%)
- Box 118: 2 of 880 (0%)
- Box 119: 40 of 990 (1%)
- Box 121: 119 of 526 (21%)
- Box 122: 280 of 717 (38%)
- Box 139: 40 of 40 (COMPLETE)
- Box 150: 66 of 972 (4%)
- Box 169: 90 of 728 (11%)
- Overall: 37% of the 18,901 manuscripts currently uploaded to the website have been transcribed.
A number of interesting items were transcribed during the last week. They range from Bentham stating that ‘I live in the ground unknown to every body but the Postman in order to be out of the way of every sort of interruption‘, which presumably allowed him to write so much. Bentham also permitted himself to blow his own trumpet a little in stating that he was ‘A man of responsible circumstances, of unexceptionable character, of liberal education … not altogether unknown in the literary world‘, and who had devoted ‘himself exclusively to the service of mankind’. (thanks to David Kaminski for transcribing those two manuscripts). Elsewhere, Peter Hollis transcribed a letter from Bentham to Sir John Parnell, then Chancellor of the Exchequer in Ireland, describing a potential image for the frontispiece to his panopticon writings as ‘a great gogle eye with rays round it, over the plan of my Panopticon’.
Readers may also be interested in an article written by our colleague Dr Michael Quinn, discussing the recently published latest volume of Bentham’s Collected Works, Of Sexual Irregularities, and Other Writings on Sexual Morality, which was earlier this week made available on The Conversation website.
Thank you, as always, to everyone who has contributed to Transcribe Bentham over the last few days. It is as greatly appreciated as ever.