Virtual Volunteer Opportunities
Thank you for volunteering your time with Special Collections! We are excited to be able to improve the discoverability of the Thomas R. Jones, Sr. World War II Correspondence digital collection through your transcription efforts. Transcribing these unique primary sources helps us increase accessibility to historical records so that all of us can more easily read, search for, and use the information they contain.
How it Works
We seek to balance quality and speed with our transcription process, which we are refining as we continue to develop this opportunity. At the moment, this is how our system works:
- Anyone can start transcribing or add to a transcription of a document.
- Once a volunteer indicates they have finished transcribing a document or page, Special Collections reviews the transcription and publishes it in our Digital Collections.
How to Contribute
Find Your Primary Source
- Find materials that have not been transcribed in the Transcription Completion Checklist. Click on the URL for one of the untranscribed items.
- View the item in UTC Digital Collections, and use the Expand tool to get a closer
look at the document.
Use the zoom and pan buttons and backward and forward navigation tools.
- In the Transcription Completion Checklist, identify your item’s call number.
- Navigate to the corresponding Doc in our Google Drive Folder titled with same call number, and begin transcribing.
Track Your Contributions
Use the Transcription Completion Checklist to track your progress. Check the box in the Transcribed? column to indicate that you have completed a transcription.
UTC students transcribing original sources for Special Collections must enter Your Name and Date Completed next to each item they transcribe to receive ThinkAchieve or Beyond the Classroom credit.
How to Transcribe
Type What You See
Our main goal is to produce text that mirrors the original document. Write down words and paragraphs as you see them. Please preserve original line-spacing, spelling, grammar, punctuation, and word order, even if it is grammatically incorrect.
Keep it Simple
We want to improve readability and searchability, and we want to avoid cluttering the pages--don't worry about formatting, such as indents, tabs, or alignment.
Do not indicate font style, underlined, or bolded or italicized text.
Keep all text left-aligned and only enter line breaks or page breaks exactly as seen on the original document. Do not enter tabs or any other formatting.
Illegible Content
For words you are unable to make out, enter [illegible] in brackets, e.g. “they don't give out many passes they told us if we were here over the week end and not on the [illegible] a few of us could have 24 hour passes.”
Line Breaks
Whenever there is a line break in the original document, enter a line break in the transcription.
Example
View the original document and transcription.
Original Document |
Transcription |
 |
12-3-43 Dear Mary Mildred, Well I guess this is the army We got to Atlanta about 6:30 Love Tommy |