Volunteers needed to transcribe the Chicago Building Permits 1871-1954 collection
Introduction
The University of Illinois Chicago Library is excited to announce that it has launched a crowdsourcing project to transcribe handwritten information in the historic Chicago Building Permits 1871-1954 collection. The transcribed data will be searchable and more accessible to researchers and UIC students working on mapping and data visualization projects and help them answer questions about the built environment including about specific structures and works by notable architects.
Volunteers can help transform the Chicago Building Permits into a searchable data set by transcribing the documents via the crowdsourcing platform FromThePage. The existing collection is comprised of images of handwritten texts from 90 ledger books. The database will enable researchers to search, map, analyze, and visualize information from approximately 1.2 million permits.
FromThePage allows anyone to sign up and transcribe. We hope to engage the community of people who use the permit data to make that data more usable. If you or anyone you know might be interested in contributing, see the Guide to Transcribing Chicago Building Permits for illustrated instructions and access to FromThePage.
For questions, contact Tracy Seneca at tjseneca@uic.edu.