We’re excited to announce a new feature in the Catalog — Transcription Summaries! This is a new feature where, at a glance, you can see how many pages have been completed on a record. This summary will help you decide if you should look for a page to transcribe or advance to the next record in the mission.
We heard your feedback that it was cumbersome to find a page that had not yet been transcribed. This new feature should help with that! Citizen Archivist volunteers have been transcribing at a breakneck pace, so we still encourage you to advance a few pages in a list of mission records to start reviewing Transcription Summaries. Often volunteers will transcribe in the order the records fall in the mission, so advancing several pages further could be helpful.
We will be updating our video How to Find Pages to Transcribe to include the Transcription Summary feature. In the meantime, the instructions on the video are still correct to identify which pages have transcriptions available and which pages have not been started. Please also take a look at ourResourcesandFAQ pages for instructions and more how-to videos.
Thanks to all the recent press coverage the Citizen Archvisit program has received, beginning on January 12, our number of new volunteer accounts and number of pages transcribed has rocketed. Check out these amazing numbers — and THANK YOU for your work to unlock history!
Pages Transcribed
Each week Citizen Archivist volunteers typically transcribe an average of 8,500 pages, but in the last three weeks, you have transcribed 247,220 pages!
Revolutionary War Pensions Transcribed
These records are some of the most challenging to transcribe. Volunteers typically transcribe an average of 2,500 pages a week. In the last three weeks, you have transcribed 53,583 pages!
Hint: If you’re experiencing some lag or other issues with pages taking very long to load, try clearing your browser’s cache.
Tip: You don’t need to save your work! The Catalog has an autosave function that will save your work periodically. When you have finished with the page, please click Publish and Close; your transcription has been added to our Catalog and shortly all the words you typed will be searched every time someone conducts a search at catalog.archives.gov. Comments and tags are automatically saved when you click enter.
Hint: You might see some Extracted Text, which transcribes exactly what it sees, but it does make mistakes. Make sure to read our newsletter from November 2024 to learn more about Extracted Text.
Are you starting research of your own? Make History Hub your first stop! You can ask—or answer—questions on History Hub, or see if your question has already been answered! Check out our featured edition for more details, information, and instructions aboutusing History Hub for your research.
