Digital Possibilities Series: Tending the Community - Building and Sustaining a Crowdsourced Transcription Project
Newberry Transcribe invites volunteers to help unlock the Newberry Library's handwritten historical collections — one document at a time. In this webinar, Digital Services Librarian Jen Wolfe discusses the philosophy behind the project, the outreach strategies that have built an active volunteer community, and the ongoing work of sustaining a transcription program after launch. Attendees will come away with a framework for thinking about crowdsourced transcription not as a technical problem but as a community relationship — one that remains meaningful even in an age of AI.
This is the first webinar of the summer Digital Possibilities webinar series, a CARLI and FLVC joint collaboration.
Presenter:
Jen Wolfe is a Digital Services Librarian at the Newberry Library in Chicago, where she manages digital scholarship and outreach programs, including Newberry Transcribe, a crowdsourced manuscript transcription project. She has spent over a decade making archival materials accessible and engaging for non-specialist audiences through digital exhibitions, instructional resources, and public programming.
Hosted by CARLI.