Picturing Michigan’s Past: Transcribing Handwritten Postcards

Postcard depicting two white boat on the greenish-blue waters of the Saginaw River. Several people in canoes can be seen on the river. In the background are several homes and large green trees along the shoreline.

For the past few months, I’ve been looking for a volunteer opportunity. Something that I feel connected with and where I can contribute an hour or more at a time.

A project that doesn’t require huge blocks of time.

In the past, I would volunteer at a local school library. But I haven’t done any in-person volunteering since before the Covid pandemic.

What I wanted was a virtual volunteer opportunity. And my goal was to find something local to my community or state.

Which is what I found when I discovered Picturing Michigan’s Past, a Zooniverse volunteer project at the William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan.

Given my background working at and volunteering at libraries since I was a teenager, I’m not surprised I found a research project at a library.

Continue reading Picturing Michigan’s Past: Transcribing Handwritten Postcards

Happy Scribe: Online Service to Create Transcripts for Your Audio and Video

As I read my Twitter stream this morning, a tweet from Poynter captured my attention:

An online transcription service that quickly transcribes audio files, how did I miss this news last May?

From today’s article, I learned that when Poynter shared the news about the Happy Scribe transcription service in May 2017, journalists quickly tried out the online tool for their transcripts. Continue reading Happy Scribe: Online Service to Create Transcripts for Your Audio and Video