Progress update, 8 to 14 March 2014

Welcome to the progress update for the period 8 to 14 March 2014, which has been another bumper week of transcription. 15,567 words were transcribed this week, along with a further 6,569 words of TEI XML.

7,210 manuscripts have now been transcribed or partially-transcribed, which is up 72 on last week’s total. 6,880 (95%) of these transcripts have now been transcribed, which is an increase of 65 since the last progress report.

The more detailed state of progress is as follows:

• Box 1: 63 manuscripts transcribed of 794 (7%)
• Box 2: 465 of 753 (61%)
• Box 5: 147 of 290 (50%)
• Box 15: 16 of 914 (1%)
• Box 27: 350 of 350 (COMPLETE)
• Box 34: 3 of 398 (1%)
• Box 35: 286 of 439 (65%)
• Box 36: 0 of 418 (0%)
• Box 41: 70 of 528 (12%)
• Box 42: 54 of 910 (5%)
• Box 50: 156 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: 215 of 499 (42%)
• Box 100: 182 of 422 (41%)
• Box 107: 458 of 538 (84%)
• Box 115: 276 of 307 (89%)
• Box 116: 492 of 864 (55%)
• Box 117: 155 of 853 (16%)
• Box 118: 36 of 880 (3%)
• Box 119: 62 of 990 (1%)
• Box 121: 119 of 526 (21%)
• Box 122: 280 of 717 (38%)
• Box 139: 40 of 40 (COMPLETE)
• Box 150: 95 of 972 (9%)
• Box 169: 123 of 728 (16%)
• Overall: 38% of the 18,901 manuscripts currently uploaded to the website have been transcribed.

One nice find during the last week was the transcription by volunteer Simon Croft of Bentham’s satirical ‘Panegyric on the Dead’, in which he mocks the idea that the law was infallible since it had been produced by eminent, now deceased, men. A ‘dead man‘, wrote Bentham, ‘is universally acknowleged to be more estimable than a live one. He is universally acknowleged to be good company: since his decorum is such, that after he has once said what he has to say, which every one is at liberty to attend to or not as he thinks proper, he never sets himself afterwards to contradict.‘ Which is rather appropriate coming from a man whose remains are now in a box here at UCL. Perhaps we should have these words embossed on the auto-icon’s cabinet…

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