Happy 6th Birthday to Transcribe Bentham!

According to WebMD, by the age of six children should be able to read and copy at least 10 easy words like ‘cat’ and ‘hat’.  I am happy to say that Transcribe Bentham passed this milestone long ago!

It was six years ago that Jeremy Bentham’s manuscripts were opened up to volunteers for the first time.  Although we were once unsure if the task of transcribing Bentham would appeal, we have been lucky enough to welcome a conscientious and hard-working group of volunteer transcribers.  These volunteers have transcribed Bentham’s thoughts on a variety of subjects including legal reform, crime and punishment, economics, politics, education and much more.  Our volunteers have also coped exceptionally well with Bentham’s handwriting, which can often be rather difficult to decipher.  The amount of work undertaken by the volunteers has been phenomenal.  At the last count, over 16,500 pages of Bentham have been transcribed or partially transcribed.  Over the past year, the transcribers have worked on an impressive average of 55 pages per week.  It must be underlined here how grateful we are to our volunteers for their enthusiasm and dedication.

Transcribe Bentham plays an important role in opening up Bentham’s papers to a wider audience.  The digitisation of Bentham’s manuscripts is ongoing and transcribers will soon have access to the full collection of Bentham’s writings as held in UCL Special Collections and The British Library.  Transcripts submitted by volunteers appear alongside images of the original manuscripts in our open access digital repository.  Volunteer transcripts are also making a significant contribution to the Bentham Project’s work on the scholarly edition of Bentham’s Collected Works.  As my colleagues Dr Michael Quinn and Dr Tim Causer have explained recently, these transcripts are used a starting point for further editorial work and the annotation of Bentham’s various references and allusions.

Speaking of Dr Tim Causer, he moved on to pastures new in January 2016 after more than five years at the helm of Transcribe Bentham.  He has not gone far however and is now working on his own edition of Bentham’s writings on convict transportation.  Dr Causer’s willingness to share his experiences and offer advice has been invaluable in helping me settle into my new role as the coordinator of Transcribe Bentham – thanks Tim!

Looking to the future, Transcribe Bentham is now working on an exciting new project with a group of universities, research teams and archives from across Europe.  The Recognition and Enrichment of Archival Documents (READ) project is teaching computers to read historical handwriting – yes, even Bentham’s!  The Bentham manuscripts are an important test case for this handwritten text recognition technology.  We envisage that we will be able to use this new innovation to support our volunteers – by allowing them to ask the computer to suggest words that they might be unsure about as they transcribe.  We will also be developing an e-learning tool, where users can train themselves to read Bentham’s handwriting.  There will be more news on these developments over the coming months but keep an eye on the project twitter account to follow our progress!

It just leaves me to say thanks to all the staff who have worked on Transcribe Bentham over the past six years and a final thanks to our volunteers.  Transcribe Bentham would be nothing without them and I am continually impressed by their commitment and care.  Their hard work is helping us to move forward with the scholarly edition of Bentham’s writings and spread awareness of his important and influential ideas.