Current Projects
Out of the Archives →
This project includes 10 sets of record-keeping ledgers for the archive collection. History Colorado has collected for over 140 years and holds millions of archive items including approximately 30,000 books, 3,000 maps, and other unique items and each has a corresponding entry in one of these ledgers. These ledgers date back to the early 1900s and are History Colorado's first records for the archive collections and contain information about when they came in, from whom, and other pertinent data. Help us transcribe each one of these ledgers so we can better preserve these ledgers and match the provenance to each item.
William Henry Jackson Records →
William Henry Jackson (1843-1942) was an artist and photographer that explored much of the west and worked on many geological surveys. He was one of the first photographers to publish photographs for Yellowstone and Mesa Verde. The William Henry Jackson collection held by History Colorado contains thousands of the photographer's original photographs, ranging from his early work on the Hayden Expeditions in the 1870s through his career in publishing in the early 1900s. In addition to his original photographs, Jackson's own records from his time at Detroit Publishing Company are also held in the collection. These ledgers provide crucial information about many of the photographs, such as the date taken, brief additional notes, and whether they were reproduced for distribution. Transcribing Jackson's ledgers will greatly increase the accessibility of his records for research use, and provide valuable information behind his iconic and prolific photographs.
FAQs
- How do I get started?
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1. Click on the “Register” tab to create an account using the format "Firstname-Lastname" (if you’d prefer to volunteer anonymously you can skip this step). *Signing in allows you to participate in discussions and allows us to give you credit for your work. To track your volunteer hours please fill out this form for access to our volunteer portal.
2. Sign-In. If you already have an account, sign in with the username and password you created.
4. Be sure to read the Tutorial and the Field Guide first because it will help you get started.
3. Click on the “Get Started” button to start volunteering!
- Do I have to register to help?
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No, registration is not required but does help us to thank you and give you credit for your work. If you do not want to register, you can simply skip to the “get started” button.
- What will happen to the transcriptions?
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History Colorado staff will import the project information into the museum collections database (h-co.org/collections) and it becomes searchable.
- Who should I contact for more information?
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For information about volunteering at any one of our statewide History Colorado sites contact emily.dobish@state.co.us. For information about donating items and the collection contact curator@state.co.us.
- Why do these documents need to be transcribed?
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Modern technology, in particular Optical Character Recognition (OCR) which is the ability to convert images or scans into text, is not able to recognize older text or handwriting because the handwriting is unpredictable and not uniform or the text is faded or of poor quality. In order to be able to search the content of the documents, the handwriting needs to be transcribed.