Stuck at Home? National Archives Needs You!
Ready or not, parts of the country are beginning to reopen, but opportunities to exercise those mental muscles do exist for those of us still homebound. Even before the pandemic, the National Archives put out a call for volunteer researchers and catalogers to assist with transcribing the vast trove of materials held by the nation's record keeper, and they still need help.
Via History Hub, the crowdsourcing arm of the Archives website, participants are asked sign up and create a user profile. Then, volunteers select a "campaign" or topic that interests them, whether that's scouring military records or reviewing women's suffrage reports--the selection is vast. Topic-centric forums allow transcribers to reach out to the community for assistance deciphering material and sleuthing clues.
The Archives' stated goal is to have its entire physical collection available online, but it won't happen on its own. So, if you've binge-watched enough Tiger King for one pandemic, why not dust off your bibliographic skills and put them to good use?
