Universities worldwide are hosting Transcribathon events in an effort to digitize

thousands of early modern manuscripts. On Wednesday September 14 th the

Humanities Institute and the Folger Shakespeare Library hosted this semester’s

first “Transcribathon.” Over thirty UConn students and faculty came together in

the Great Hall of the Alumni Center and collaborated to transcribe and digitize

original manuscripts from the Age of Shakespeare.

Transcribers learn how to interpret the handwriting and abbreviations used in

early modern writing on the spot, and then encode their findings into Dromio, a

crowd-sourcing tool developed by the Folger Institutue. Dromio allows multiple

transcribers to enter their transcriptions simultaneously. The program then

compiles the entries and highlights discrepancies. The finished product is a fully

digitized version of an original early modern manuscript, ready for publication.

This project will continue throughout the academic year. Students can sign

up and learn how to read original documents of the English Renaissance. They

can also gain a publishing credit on the completed editions of the manuscripts.

If you are a medievalist or early modernist, this project may be for you.

Please contact Hilary Bogert-Winkler (Department of History hilary.bogert-

winkler@uconn.edu) or George Moore (English Department

george.p.moore@uconn.edu) for information on how to participate.

For more information on the Early Modern Manuscripts Online (EMMO) Project:

http://collation.folger.edu/2015/03/emmo-advancing- and-expanding/

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