Progress Update, 15 to 21 October 2011

Welcome to the progress update for the period 15 to 21 October 2011, during which excellent progress continues to be made; since the week ending 16  September, volunteers have been working at the very healthy rate of 47 transcripts per week. Excellent stuff!

2,051 manuscripts have now been transcribed, up 46 on last week. Of these, 1,793 (87%) are complete and locked, an increase of 37 on last week.

The state of progress for each box is as follows:

• Box 2: 192 manuscripts transcribed of 532 (36%)
• Box 27: 234 of 350 (66%)
• Box 35: 224 of 439 (51%)
• Box 50: 39 of 92 (42%)
• Box 51: 35 of 940 (4%)
• Box 62: 22 of 565 (3%)
• Box 70: 160 of 250 (45%)
• Box 71: 229 of 665 (34%)
• Box 72: 118 of 664 (17%)
• Box 73: 118 of 156 (75%)
• Box 79: 58 of 199 (29%)
• Box 95: 44 of 147 (30%)
• Box 96: 311 of 539 (57%)
• Box 97: 3 of 288 (1%)
• Box 115: 226 of 307 (73%)
• Box 139: 38 of 38 (100%)
• Overall: 36% of the 5,580 manuscripts uploaded to the website have been transcribed thus far.

Box 96 proved the busiest this week, with 3% of its manuscripts being transcribed.

We have had some further exciting news this week, as we learned that Transcribe Bentham has been nominated for the 2011 Digital Heritage Award, which this year is focusing on crowdsourcing projects, and which will be presented at this year’s Digital Strategies for Heritage conference in Rotterdam, 6-9 December. Five projects have been nominated and each will present to the conference audience, who will vote for the overall winner. Dr Melissa Terras of UCL’s Department of Information Studies – and part of the TB project team – is giving a paper at the conference, and will also present TB‘s pitch for the award. You can read more about the Digital Heritage Award here.

Needless to say, we are delighted and honoured to receive this nomination; coupled with a our recent award in this year’s Prix Ars Electronica, this really is a testament to the work of Transcribe Bentham‘s volunteers, who continue to make the project a success.

Thanks, as always, to those who have generously given their time and effort in taking part this week.