Volunteering | By the People, Library of Congress

By the People is a virtual program of/ for volunteers who help the  Library of Congress transcribe historic documents.

I joined a few months ago and immediately headed to the culinary/ cookbook section but there's lots more. I've really enjoyed it - it helps me develop a new skillset, understand book content history - old English and recipe formats/ styles are very different compared with today.

You can sign up, or volunteer without signing up and get transcribing. I sign up because it keeps track of what I've done, and if I ever need a letter to show my volunteering experience, I can generate one. 

You can also review work transcribed by other volunteers, or edit. You could also transcribe manually, or use the OCR - Optical Character Recognition option, then make corrections.

First, read the guidelines.

Then browse campaigns and make a choice. Or go the "Surprise me!" route.

You can also see the completed campaigns!