Thanks to the recent implementation of crowdsourced transcriptions in the Manuscript Division’s digitized Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz collection, researchers can choose to read the online letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz in either original (handwritten or typed) form or explore transcribed textual versions. Users can also search the full collection in a more creative and granular fashion.
The By the PeopleArtistic Trio: Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz letters to Henwar Rodakiewicz crowdsourcing transcription campaign was launched and completed by volunteer transcribers and reviewers during Women’s History Month in March 2022. Recent integration of the 584 transcriptions into the existing O’Keeffe-Stieglitz digital collection, using an ETL process of “extracting, transforming, and loading” data from multiple sources into a single, centralized location, provides enhanced opportunities for users to read and search the texts online.
[Clip]
Georgia O’Keeffe to Henwar Rodakiewicz, Nov. 2, 1946. Box 2, O’Keeffe-Stieglitz Correspondence, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.
Researchers exploring the digitized O’Keeffe-Stieglitz correspondence can continue to select folder-level digital content links in the O’Keeffe-Stieglitz finding aid or browse through the digitized collection directly. Now they also have the option to click on the “Image w/Text” tab in a digital display to view pages of the scanned primary documents side-by-side with volunteer-created and reviewed transcriptions. Additionally, keyword searches previously limited to the folder or series headings will now reveal embedded words, names, and references in the transcriptions. At a future time, there will also be the opportunity to work with the transcription texts as electronically archived data sets.
[Clip]
The enhanced transcription and search capability of the digitized collection helps researchers more fully appreciate and discover in their own ways how O’Keeffe penned her letters with an artist’s eye and the expressive intimacy of a talented writer.
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area.
He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.
