Introducing the Federal Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science Toolkit

Today is an important day for participation and innovation in the federal government. The White House officially launched the Federal Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science Toolkit, a tool that provides information and resources to help federal agencies use the power of public participation to help solve scientific and societal problems. The launch of this toolkit solidifies the … Continue reading Introducing the Federal Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science Toolkit

What's New On Amara?

Last March we introduced you to our new crowdsource video caption tool, Amara. This neat tool allows anyone with an interest in transcribing our motion picture collection to join our team and start typing what you hear! After the captioning is done in Amara, the captions are transferred back to YouTube, making our holdings accessible … Continue reading What's New On Amara?

Have Your Say: Revising the Digitization Strategy

Today's post comes from Markus Most, Director of the Digitization Division at the National Archives. In September 2007, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) requested public input on a Draft Plan for Digitizing Archival Materials. Incorporating feedback from the public, NARA issued the Strategy for Digitizing Archival Materials for Public Access, 2007-2016 in May 2008. The strategy … Continue reading Have Your Say: Revising the Digitization Strategy

Calling Citizen Archivists to Crowdsource Video Captions!

One of the chief goals of the National Archives is making our records- regardless of format- more accessible.  Sometimes this means digitizing records and adding them to our catalog, but it also means creating ways for all US citizens to experience our collections.  Accessibility of videos for the hearing impaired is very important to us, … Continue reading Calling Citizen Archivists to Crowdsource Video Captions!

Help Our Curators Find Signatures in the Records

Jennifer Johnson, an exhibit curator at NARA, would love your help finding records in the National Archives with signatures.  She’s working on an exhibit and would love your suggestions. At the National Archives, we have a range of signatures from the infamous (Lizzie Borden), to signatures of individuals before they were famous (Julia Child’s OSS … Continue reading Help Our Curators Find Signatures in the Records

We Can Do It! Let's Get Indexing!

Have you signed up yet to index the 1940 census?  Volunteers have indexed just over 70 million names in the census.   Your help is needed to finish indexing the millions of names that still remain. How can you help? Join the 1940 Census Community Indexing Project at www.the1940census.com. To get started you will need to … Continue reading We Can Do It! Let's Get Indexing!

New Documerica set on Flickr

In honor of Earth Day, we have added a great new set of photographs from the Documerica collection to Flickr.  Boyd Norton, a photographer who is still greatly involved with nature photography, took photos of the National Parks in the southwest, and documented solar energy projects in Arizona and strip mining in Montana as a … Continue reading New Documerica set on Flickr