There’s two kinds of volunteer work for the MNI Digital Archive: transcribing and cataloging.  We have monthly trainings and virtual meetups for both.  These two kinds of work happen on different parts of our website, so they require two separate accounts if you want to do both (but you can use the same username on both!)

Transcribing is simple and straightforward. Create an account, login, find a document, and start transcribing.  Many of our documents have been machine transcribed, so you may see some existing text, but we need human help to proofread and clean up these machine transcriptions.  If the text looks good, mark the transcription as complete and move on to the next document.  Transcription is important work because it makes the text accessible and searchable for everyone. During virtual meetups we troubleshoot tricky handwriting, talk about fun finds, and celebrate our progress.  See the Transcription Guidelines for how to get started.

Current Transcription Projects

Cataloging Guide

Cataloging is more careful, detailed work.  After creating an account and logging in, you’ll read through a document carefully and edit its catalog information to identify people named, approximate a date if one isn’t already specified, and categorize the document by its major themes and topics.  Identifying people named in the document helps members of MNI research their families.  Categorizing the document is especially helpful because it helps our researchers sort through our huge catalog of previously unsearchable documents.  During virtual trainings and meetups, we discuss what the categories mean, how to tell the difference between tricky categories, and troubleshoot difficult items.  Please register for a cataloging training to get started.

If you're already a registered cataloger, see our Cataloging Guide here. Please note that you will need to be logged in to a registered catalog account to view the guide.