Allow us to reintroduce ourselves

Crowds Wave at Mrs. Laura Bush's Motorcade in Hokkaido, Japan, National Archives Identifier 176248179 

What a week it has been!  Some of our long-time volunteers might have seen us in the news lately.  Our Citizen Archivist program was featured by many media outlets including USA Today, CBS Mornings, Live with Kelly and Mark, and People magazine.  We know many of our new volunteers discovered us this way, and we’re so happy you’ve joined!

Last week, nearly 30,000 new catalog accounts were created, a 100 times increase over our usual weekly sign-ups. So you might have noticed some hiccups in the Catalog.  Don’t worry, that won’t be a regular occurrence.

We’d like to share some hints and tricks you may find helpful as you join us for the first time.  Even our veteran transcribers may find these helpful:

1. Watch our video tutorials on the Resources page, especially How to Transcribe in the National Archives Catalog.

2. So many of you are transcribing, it is hard to keep up.  It may take some time to find a page available - but there are thousands of pages in the missions that have not been transcribed.  Here’s how to find them: 

HINT - jump to the middle of the list of records to start searching for a page to work on.  Many people work in order, you’ll have better luck if you move away from the start.

3. Did you know that you can transcribe anything in the National Archives Catalog?  Missions are a way for us to share records to transcribe.  You can search the Catalog for a topic, person, event or anything.

In your search results, filter by Available to access online, then use the method mentioned above to find records to transcribe.

4. Formatting isn’t very important.  The transcription box will not allow you to underline or italicize.  Additionally, it is not necessary to include information such as “This page is handwritten.”  The purpose of the transcription is to improve the catalog’s searchability, so it’s the words that matter most.

Check out the bottom of Get Started Transcribing for good examples of formatting issues you may come across.

5. Misspellings in the original text should be entered just as you see them. You should add the correct spelling in square brackets afterward.  For example: “After my first tower [tour], I returned home.”

6. Stay subscribed to our Newsletter.  This is where we share information about records in the Catalog, and most importantly share information about new development to the Catalog and the Citizen Archivist platform, give hints and tips and more.  If we need to alert you to something that’s happening within Citizen Archivist, this is where we’ll share the information.

7. Don’t forget you can also tag our Revolutionary War pensions!  It’s a fun way to help researchers discover interesting pensions, and you don’t need to read cursive (because we can all use a break from deciphering sometimes).  You can watch our video for more information.

Questions?  Search History Hub for answers.  History Hub is an online forum for researchers and volunteers.  Citizen Archivists have their own section where you can find answers to previously asked questions as well as help from other volunteers.

Thank you for joining us as a Citizen Archivist.  We appreciate all your hard work to improve access to our history.

Questions or comments? Email us at catalog@nara.gov