Wikisource as a tool for OCR transcription correction: the National Library of Scotland’s response to COVID-19

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the National Library of Scotland’s Wikisource transcription correction project, an organization-wide effort during lockdown that generated 1,000 fully accurate transcriptions of 3,000 Scottish chapbooks, which the Library had uploaded to Wikisource, Wikimedia’s online library of digitized, out of copyright works. The project, which contributed to the Library being awarded Partnership of the Year 2020 at the Wikimedia UK AGM, is thought to be the largest ever staff engagement with Wikimedia, and has had significant benefits to the Library and staff well beyond the original aims of the project. Initially set up to improve the quality of optical character recognition (OCR) transcriptions in order to make the chapbooks more discoverable and searchable, the project gave staff a purpose and sense of belonging during lockdown, provided an opportunity to work with a varied and fascinating collection, and enabled them to develop new skills in editing Wikisource, drafting guidance documentation, and managing projects. Further to this, the initiative greatly increased library staff engagement with Wikimedia, led to the formation of a Wikimedia Community of Interest, and resulted in the embedding of Wikimedia activity in staff work.