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Project update – latest on our transcription challenge
By uczwlse, on 11 October 2018
It’s time for a second update on the transcription challenge we launched in back in July.
It has been really cheering to see so many of our volunteers responding to our request to complete the transcription of a number of targeted boxes. Thanks to this collaborative work, we are coming close to finalising the transcription of 7 boxes of Bentham’s manuscripts. I am hugely grateful to everyone who has participated.
Volunteers have now transcribed 104 pages of the targeted material. This represents around 75% of the 138 pages which we asked them to transcribe.
This is a particularly impressive achievement when you consider that it is often the most difficult pages which remain untranscribed at the Transcription Desk. Many of these pages have terrible handwriting, confusing layouts and passages of non-English text.
Volunteers have reached our target for boxes 14, 95 and 538 – yay! And there are just 1-2 pages still to transcribe in boxes 50, 70 and 537. Box 72 has a number of pages still to be transcribed – and we would be grateful for the help of any French-speaking volunteers.
The full list of outstanding pages can be found at the end of this blog post – we invite all our volunteers to keep transcribing!
| Box Number |
No. of pages transcribed |
Target no. of pages to transcribe |
Target achieved? |
| 14 | 3 | 3 | Yes |
| 50 | 15 | 16 | Nearly |
| 70 | 34 | 35 | Nearly |
| 72 | 15 | 45 | No |
| 95 | 19 | 19 | Yes |
| 537 | 4 | 6 | Nearly |
| 538 | 14 | 14 | Yes |
| TOTAL | 104 | 138 |
All the transcription statistics on Transcribe Bentham are compiled manually. So once all the targets have been reached, I will need to undertake some double-checks to ensure that each of these boxes is complete. Then we will be able to celebrate the completion of 7 boxes of Bentham’s manuscripts and another fantastic contribution to Bentham scholarship!
If you have any questions or comments about the challenge, please let me know by email (transcribe.bentham@ucl.ac.uk). Happy transcribing…
Material still to transcribe:
Box 50
| Page Number |
Content | Difficulty of handwriting | Foreign language? |
| JB/050/174/001 | Legal procedure (table form) | Difficult | French |
Box 70
| Page Number |
Content | Difficulty of handwriting |
Foreign language? |
| JB/070/261/001 | Larceny | Difficult |
Box 72
| Page Number |
Content | Difficulty of handwriting |
Foreign language? |
| JB/072/010/001 | Offences against revenue (table form) | Moderate | |
| JB/072/010/002 | Offences against revenue (table form) | Moderate | |
| JB/072/011/001 | Offences against trade (table form) | Moderate | |
| JB/072/014/001 | Offences against public property (short table form) | Moderate | |
| JB/072/016/001 | Offences against government (table form) | Moderate | |
| JB/072/016/002 | Offences against government (table form) | Moderate | |
| JB/072/018/001 | Offences against national peace (short table form) | Moderate | |
| JB/072/019/001 | Offences against the coin (table form) | Moderate | |
| JB/072/183/002 | Penal code | Difficult | French |
| JB/072/183/003 | Penal code | Difficult | French |
| JB/072/183/004 | Penal code | Difficult | French |
| JB/072/184/001 | Penal code | Difficult | French |
| JB/072/186/001 | Penal code | Difficult | French |
| JB/072/215/001 | Penal code (table form) | Difficult | French |
| JB/072/216/001 | Penal code | Difficult | French |
| JB/072/216/002 | Penal code | Difficult | French |
| JB/072/216/003 | Penal code | Difficult | French |
| JB/072/216/004 | Penal code | Difficult | French |
| JB/072/217/001 | Penal code | Difficult | French |
| JB/072/219/001 | Penal code | Moderate | French |
| JB/072/219/002 | Penal code | Moderate | French |
| JB/072/220/001 | Penal code | Moderate | French |
| JB/072/220/002 | Penal code | Moderate | French |
| JB/072/220/003 | Penal code | Moderate | French |
| JB/072/220/004 | Penal code | Moderate | French |
| JB/072/221/001 | Penal code | Moderate | French |
| JB/072/221/002 | Penal code | Moderate | French |
| JB/072/221/003 | Penal code | Moderate | French |
| JB/072/221/004 | Penal code | Moderate | French |
| JB/072/222/001 | Penal code | Moderate | French |
Box 537
| Page Number |
Content | Difficulty of handwriting |
Foreign language? |
| JB/537/364/001 | Jeremy to Samuel Bentham | Difficult | French |
| JB/537/365/001 | Jeremy to Samuel Bentham | Difficult | French |