Studying the past is one thing, but do you think you could help contribute to our curation of it? Why not be part of something special and contribute to one of the amazing crowdsourcing projects that needs assistance to digitize and share stories of the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Crowdsourcing literally means outsourcing work to the crowd. When museums or archives have large collections of documents, it can take years for a small team to digitize, annotate and make the items available to the public. So who better to ask for help, than the public who want access to the material? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Crowdsourcing a project allows museums and archives to reduce their cataloguing backlogs whilst also allowing researchers to be part of the process. It makes a daunting project more manageable. A good example is the In the Spotlight<\/span><\/strong> project which asked contributors to help rediscover popular entertainment from the past 300 years by transcribing names and performances on the playbills of Britain\u2019s old theatres. You can now view all their hard work at the British Library Theatrical Playbills<\/strong><\/a> Collection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Humanities projects, involving lots of people are also known as ‘citizen humanities’ and can play a vital role in advancing humanities research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Contributing to society in whatever ways we can is hugely enriching and gives us a sense of belonging. The University’s mission, inspired by its Church of England foundation, is to create an environment in which individuals are transformed, knowledge is created, and communities are enriched. As part of your commitment as a CCCU student, why not commit to these values too and contribute to the wider community through a crowdsourcing project?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Contributing to a crowdsourcing project is fairly easy to do and can be fitted around other daily tasks – Just as you might commit to taking 10,000 steps a day, why not schedule time to contribute to a crowdsourcing project? You can spend as little as ten minutes a day, a week, a month and feel that you are part of something important. Then, if you really love it, you can notch up a serious number of contributions. You can then add it to your CV! <\/p>\n\n\n\n There are lots of brilliant projects available via the From the Page<\/span><\/a> and Zooniverse<\/span><\/a> platforms. Here are some of the project that they have undertaken that you might find interesting:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Material Culture of Wills: England 1540-1790 | Zooniverse – People-powered research<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Every Name Counts<\/span><\/a> project aims to create the world’s largest Online Archive<\/span><\/a> of documents on the victims and survivors of National Socialism. It will be a digital memorial to the people who were persecuted. The 27th January marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp. Every year on that day Holocaust Memorial Day takes place. This year, why not commemorate one of its victims by contributing to this important project. The video below explores how contributors feel about this vital work.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhy is it important?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
How can I get involved?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Every Name Counts<\/h3>\n\n\n\n