The correspondence is part of the library’s Anti-slavery Collection, a “Collection of Distinction” at the library that has been well taken care of by the library’s staff. From the outset, this collection was “pretty meticulously cataloged on catalog cards”, according to Tom Blake, BPL’s content discovery manager, with some cards including abstracts of the letters.[i] Now, digitized versions of the letters, broadsides, newspapers, and other print material in the collection are available online via the library’s catalog, Flickr, and the Internet Archive.[ii] But because of the handwritten nature of the correspondence, the letters are not searchable by their content. With more than 12,000 such letters in the collection, it would be expensive and time-consuming to have library staff take on the process of transcribing them.[iii]

That’s where the public comes in. The library has partnered with Zooniverse, an established crowd-sourcing platform for science and humanities projects, to build a website to facilitate the transcription of these hand-written letters into machine-readable text. Users register for a Zooniverse account and then, after a brief tutorial of the transcription tools, are able to turn the handwritten letters into typed text one line at a time, saving their progress as they go. Multiple users will work on each line of text, and once three users agree on the exact wording of a line, that line is considered finished and is unable to be transcribed again.[iv] Users can interact with each other and get advice on transcribing difficult passages via a Talk page on the website.

The library launched the transcription site on January 23, 2018, and there are already more than 2,200 registered volunteers for the project. These volunteers comprise library staff and community as well as members of the Zooniverse community who span the globe.[v] The project isn’t only about the physical act of translating handwriting into typed text. One social studies teacher in St. Louis, Mo., gave her class assignments from the library’s transcription project and used it as a springboard for discussions on historical inquiry, preservation, and the abolitionist movement.[vi]

Blake is enjoying how quickly this project has moved from the simple transcription of letters into a connection between the library and its users. “Libraries these days have become more aware their main commodity isn’t necessarily their collections but the communities they build,” Blake said. “Putting our collection on a platform like this helps to make people understand this is their collection.”[vii]

References

[i] Tom Blake, Content Discovery Manager at Boston Public Library, in a phone interview with the author, February 15, 2018.

[ii] “Anti-slavery.” Boston Public Library. Accessed February 17, 2018. http://www.bpl.org/distinction/featured-collections/anti-slavery/

[iii] Tom Blake, Content Discovery Manager at Boston Public Library, in a phone interview with the author, February 15, 2018.

[iv] Ibid.

[v] Ibid.

[vi] “8th graders in Missouri transcribe anti-slavery documents and learn about the abolitionist movement.” Boston Public Library. February 7, 2018. http://www.bpl.org/distinction/2018/02/07/6191/

[vii] Tom Blake, Content Discovery Manager at Boston Public Library, in a phone interview with the author, February 15, 2018.

The post Anti-Slavery Collection at Boston Public Library Gets a Digital Makeover first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

I have seen some innovative things in libraries such as seed lending, tie lending, RFID tags, and 3D printing, but I have yet to see anything like this.  While it resembles a car wash, it does not use soap or water, but rather spinning brushes and air to wipe away dust and debris that have made a home on a book’s surface. A book is placed at one end of the machine and is gently pulled through a maze of whirling parts. Potential allergens and opaque, grimy dust is whisked away, and soon after the book emerges from the other end clean and refreshed. I had my doubts, but there is a noticeable difference between a cleaned book and one that has not been cleaned.

So, why would anyone want to regularly dust books in a library’s collection? Dusting books can help alleviate allergy symptoms for sensitive patrons and staff, and can also help increase the life of the book. Recently I read an article on cleaning books with disinfectant wipes as they are returned to the library. The idea was to prevent patrons from contacting unwanted animal dander and other allergens carried over from the previous borrower. For libraries currently using this technique, a book-cleaning machine might be something to consider (if you can afford the hefty price tag).

The Boston Public Library has commented that it does not use its book car wash to clean rare materials; it is mainly used for books without dustjackets. I can see where cleaning rare books with brittle and chipped binding could be problematic. Spinning brushes are not a good thing to have near fragile, delicate objects. The Boston Public Library also said that books are cleaned when they are loaned or copied. This makes sense, especially for digitization preparation. When making a copy of material, you want to make sure that its condition is optimal. Removing dust from a volume allows the library to make a more quality copy than one that is obscured by a coating of dust.

See the library’s video of the machine here.

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