The Smithsonian and its holdings are massive. If you are fortunate to live in or near DC
and/or have a chance to visit there, you can easily spend days, possibly weeks
just visiting the Smithsonian museums. Just a couple of weeks ago I was visiting two
museums (the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M Sackler Gallery) which I had
never been to before. I also know that
what we see if really the “tip of the iceberg” for what is contained in its
massive collection.
In the
Smithsonian’s efforts to make more of their collections available to us, it is
using crowdsourcing techniques and enlisting “Smithsonian Digital Volunteers” (aka transcribers). Currently, over 1800 users have or are
transcribing over 10,000 documents. As a volunteer (you will need to signup) you can select either a theme or museum or archive of interest to see what projects are currently available for transcribing. There is an amazing
diversity of projects available. Though
many may not include information about your ancestors, they do have the
potential to give you insight into their lives or just introduce you to
something you were previously unfamiliar with!
Don’t see a project
here that catches your eye, then maybe you want to help NARA
As you visit
various genealogy or family history related websites, see if they might also be
using crowdsourcing to expedite making material more quickly available to
researchers online. Might you be able to
help?
Editor’s Note: Do check out the Best of Both Worlds, Museums,
Libraries, and Archives in a Digital Age – a new e-book exploring “the efforts of many
world-class institutions, including his own [the Smithsonian] to use technology
to open their collections and programs to the world.” There is also a short introductory video.
Editor’s Note: Other Upfront with
NGS articles about the Smithsonian:
- Past Imperfect -- Smithsonian Blog with the tagline, History with all the interesting bits left in (2013)
- Don't Overlook the Smithsonian As You Do Your Research! (2011)
Editor’s Note: Other Upfront with NGS articles about
Crowdsourcing:
- Bay Area history exhibit aided by crowdsourcing (2013)
- Ancient documents go digital at Duke -- glimpses of a distant past, so different yet so similar! (2013)
- Luis von Ahn: Massive-scale online collaboration -- Really Neat Genealogy Applications (2013)
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