Progress update, 10 to 16 May 2014

Hello and welcome to the progress update for the period 10 to 16 May 2014, where I’m delighted to report that TB volunteers have continued to sustain the very high rate of transcription we have seen since the start of this year.

This week, our figures rose to 8,295 manuscripts transcribed or partially-transcribed (up 120 on last week) and 7,782 manuscripts (94%) completed and locked (up 96 on last week). This translates to 18,450 words of Bentham, his secretaries, and his correspondents transcribed by our volunteers, with a further 4,592 words added in the form of TEI XML tags which enrich the description of the manucripts.

The more detailed state of progress is as follows:

Box	No. of manuscripts worked on	No. of manuscripts in box	Completion
Box 1	95	794	11%
Box 2	465	753	61%
Box 5	153	290	52%
Box 15	24	914	3%
Box 27	350	350	100%
Box 29	1	122	1%
Box 31	2	302	1%
Box 34	7	398	1%
Box 35	286	439	65%
Box 36	7	418	1%
Box 37	0	487	1%
Box 38	0	424	1%
Box 39	0	282	1%
Box 41	71	528	12%
Box 42	58	910	6%
Box 44	17	201	8%
Box 50	159	198	79%
Box 51	372	940	39%
Box 57	1	420	1%
Box 62	55	565	9%
Box 70	295	350	84%
Box 71	663	663	100%
Box 72	612	664	92%
Box 73	151	151	100%
Box 79	199	199	100%
Box 95	123	147	83%
Box 96	533	539	98%
Box 97	80	296	27%
Box 98	216	499	43%
Box 100	182	422	41%
Box 107	468	538	86%
Box 115	276	307	89%
Box 116	497	864	57%
Box 117	235	853	27%
Box 118	65	880	7%
Box 119	142	990	14%
Box 121	120	526	21%
Box 122	281	717	38%
Box 139	40	40	100%
Box 150	98	972	10%
Box 169	145	728	19%
Add MSS 537	361	744	48%
Add MSS 538	155	858	18%
Add MSS 539	235	948	24%
Overall	8,295	23,881	34%

Box 537, the first box of material to be added to Transcribe Bentham from the collections of the British Library, is just a few manuscripts away from being 50% complete. This is fantastic progress, especially as the box has only been available for transcript since the beginning of March. We will be introducing more fascinating  manuscripts from the collection over the next few weeks – stay tuned!

Continuing on the theme of the British Library material, the highlights from the transcripts submitted by volunteers this week show that Sir Samuel Bentham, brother of Jeremy, intrepid explorer in Russia and naval architect, is fast-becoming a star of the whole Bentham show:

‘I dont know whether I told you or not of my discovery with respect to bodies floating down a river with the stream’, writes Samuel from Siberia to Jeremy in 1783. Thankfully, this was strictly a scientific observation, as it applied to any object floating down a river, rather than corpses.

As Jeremy was preparing to visit Samuel in Russia in the early 1780s, the younger brother wrote to proffer some sensible fashion advice: ‘A pair of boots large enough for me you might wear on the road with 2 pairs of warm stockings under them.’

Meanwhile, Samuel estimated Jeremy’s travelling costs as possibly as low as £30, if Jeremy could come in an ‘economical way‘, involving travel by sea ‘as far as Dantzic or even Merinel’ and overland sledge via Riga. Our thanks to transcriber Ohsoldgirl for all three of these contributions!

Our gratitude is also extended, as always, to everyone who has contributed to Transcribe Bentham during the last week.