GLAM/Case studies/Walters Art Museum/Transcribing
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Note: This project has the Walters working with Wikimedia community members to transcribe and translate rare Latin documents in the museum collection. These documents will then be shared via Wikisource, a free online library. - See more at: http://openglam.org/2013/01/22/walters-art-museum-a-case-study-in-sharing/#sthash.Tvu2xefc.dpuf'
After the uploading of over 18,000 images, it became clear that more could be done with the media shared with Wikimedia Commons. The Walters began working with e-volunteers from Wikisource, to help transcribe rare books and documents in Latin. Inspired by similar projects, conversations have begun to use wikisource as a platform to create transcriptions and translations of the text of manuscripts in the collection of the Walters Art Museum.
- Can the wikisource tools be applied to this book, in order to facilitate transcription?
- Should we write a guide to orient any interested participants in the project?
A curator of manuscripts at the Walters Art Museum has suggested one of the books from the museum's initial upload. This book was written in Latin, by hand and it is a gloss: these features all present challenges to its ability to be transcribed mechanically. The text is fairly unique, which means that its transcription and translation would provide something of more value than, for example, yet another version of a very well known text. Also, the Latin in use within the pages of this book should be easier to understand than the texts of some of the museum's other books, making it more accessible to a larger community of contributors.
The book is http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gloss_on_The_lamentations_of_Jeremiah.pdf
The museum's source for this book is http://art.thewalters.org/detail/19816/gloss-on-the-lamentations-of-jeremiah/