Transcriber Interview: Scribe of Poland

As a part of our celebration of the fifth anniversary of community sourced transcription here at the PWD, we reached out to one of transcribers, Scribe of Poland (SofP), to ask her about her experience transcribing documents for the project. Hailing from northeastern Ohio, Scribe of Poland is an active and prolific transcriber.

PWD: How did you discover the PWD?

SofP: My interest in crowd-sourcing began when I was working on my family tree. To return the favor for data I garnered from FamilySearch, I started indexing and reviewing genealogical data for that group. My curiosity led me to search for other groups who were transcribing historical records and I found PWD.

Volunteer Spotlight-A Beginning Transcriber

Even though there are more than 1300 transcribers signed up to work on documents at the Papers of the War Department, each transcriber is an individual. Some have only ever worked on one document, while some have transcribed dozens. We have not done this in several months, so today we turn to a short interview with one of our newest transcribers, user ddunnett, to learn a little more about his background and experiences with the Scripto/PWD project. Please stay tuned over coming weeks as we feature other transcribers and their work.

Scripto User Spotlight-DIY History

Today we bring you the first of several spotlights on a different sort of Scripto user. Before, we have featured individual transcribers who have devoted time to transcribing War Department documents. Here, though, we feature an institution that has implemented their own verison of the Scripto tool to power their own transcription project. The project is called DIY History, and is brought to us by the University of Iowa Libraries.

Who are these transcribers, anyway?

We now have more than 800 transcribers signed up to work on documents at the Papers of the War Department. Some have only ever worked on one document, while some have transcribed dozens. We have not done this in many months, so today we turn to a short interview with one of our more active transcribers, Nicole Salomone, to learn a little more about her background and experiences with the Scripto/PWD project:

Three Months On-A Transcriber Spotlight

Three months into our Scripto-War Department Papers partnership, we have over 200 transcribers. We thought it would be interesting to learn a little more about the volunteers who have devoted many hours to transcribing. We turn now to a short interview with one of our more active transcribers, Patricia Gerard, to learn a little more about her background and experiences with the project:

PWD: Briefly, what is your editing background, if any?
Patricia Gerard (PG): I have edited publications for over thirty years, off and on, from marketing to educational publications and newsletters.