Dr Gavin Robinson: Manuscript Transcription and Data Services

• Introduction
• Historical Manuscript Transcription, XML Markup, and Data Entry
• Other Data Services
• Quality assurance and control
• Prices and timescales
• Examples of my work

Introduction

I offer high quality historical manuscript transcription services at volumes and prices appropriate for large academic projects. I have over 16 years' experience of professional manuscript transcription work. Some of this work has been published at British History Online. I specialize in transcription of English language documents from the 16th century onwards, and can also extract data from some formulaic Latin documents. See the headings below for more details of services and prices, and published examples of my work. I can give free advice and estimates to help with project planning and funding applications, with no obligation to use my services if the application is successful. I am based in the UK but often work for overseas clients, especially in the US. Most of my work is for organizations, but I can also work for private individuals.

Historical Manuscript Transcription, XML Markup, and Data Entry

I can deliver very accurate full text transcripts of historical manuscripts according to any transcription conventions you specify. I can often expand abbreviations if required. Transcripts can be delivered as plain text, word processor files, or XML. Markup can include the structure of the text, named entities, and dates. I am familiar with TEI P5.

Marking up names is very easy to do during first pass transcription and will add very little time. Manually marking up names later is more labour-intensive, and Named Entity Recognition software is likely to be less accurate than a skilled and experienced transcriber. Even in a plain text transcript, names can be marked up with XML tags or simple markup like wikilinks.

I can also enter structured data into a spreadsheet, database, or XML file. This is easiest to do if the original document is already structured, but I can also extract structured data from unstructured or semi-structured documents.

You will have to supply digital images of the pages to be transcribed, and get copyright clearance if necessary. High quality images are easier to use, but I can deal with whatever you've got, even if it's too difficult for HTR/OCR software or unskilled double keyers.

Other Data Services

I can also offer these services:

• checking and correcting existing transcripts.
• cleaning or wrangling structured data.
• editing geodata in QGIS.

Quality assurance and control

All transcribers inevitably make errors but I use the following methods to reduce the risk of making errors during transcription and to find and correct errors after transcription:

• using my experience of transcription and historical research to read letter forms, words, and abbreviations accurately, and understand the structure and purpose of documents. This helps me to avoid errors that unskilled keyers would make, and to recognise possible errors during later checks.
• positioning windows and sizing text to reduce the risk of missing words or lines because of eye skip, which can be very difficult and expensive to track down afterwards.
• working carefully and not going too fast. This reduces typing errors. Shannon's communication theory says that speed and redundancy both affect the accuracy of transmission. Advocates of double keying privilege redundancy but I compensate for a lack of redundancy by reducing the speed. Be suspicious of any transcriber who quotes a high words-per-minute speed.
• a second pass to deal with difficult words which have been flagged in the first pass. This is more efficient than spending too long on a word at the first pass. The experience of transcribing the rest of the text often makes difficult words easier.
• text mining: using a script to construct a list of unique words, which can be compared with a dictionary if modern spellings are used, or browsed manually if non-standard early-modern spellings are used. This is the most efficient way to trap words that are likely to have been mistyped. Suspect words will be checked against the document images.
• smooth reading: reading the whole text without skimming words, but without carefully examining the spelling of words. This is the most efficient way to find dictionary words that don't make sense in context. My experience of historical documents helps me to notice words that could be wrong. Suspect words will be checked against the document images.
• structured data will be checked using facets and filters in OpenRefine.

I do not use double keying, because it is always likely to be at least one of:

• Expensive: paying a fair wage to two experts to transcribe the same text, and a third expert to reconcile the differences, will more than double the cost for less than 1% increase in accuracy. Few projects can justify this cost in their funding bids.
• Exploitative: reducing the cost of double keying to compete with my single keying service depends on exploiting low-paid workers in the Far East. Projects that use outsourced double keying are unethical. Many universities now have supply chain policies that would not allow this method.
• Inaccurate: low-paid workers who lack the experience and language skills to understand historical documents, and who are made to work as fast as possible to save money, are likely to make many errors. Inexperienced transcribers are likely to make the same errors as each other, and double keying has no way of trapping these errors. Genealogy paysites are notorious for their poor quality transcripts. University procurement policies usually require high quality and will not automatically favour the lowest price.

Trying to fix one of these problems will inevitably make one of the others worse. Double keying is fundamentally flawed and should be avoided.

Prices and timescales

I usually charge an hourly rate, which will be fixed before the work commences. The rate will be negotiated according to the size of the job, the amount of skill required, and your project's budget. I am more likely to accept a lower rate for a larger contract that guarantees work for longer. Small jobs for private individuals will be charged at higher rates. I may quote a fixed price for some very small jobs. Before commencement, we must have a project plan in place that specifies what is to be delivered by when, and a maximum number of hours to be worked. I will work until I have completed the agreed tasks or the maximum hours, whichever is sooner.

Prices are subject to change in future because of inflation and exchange rates, but once we have agreed an hourly rate in a contract, it will not change. The contract and invoice will state the price in your own currency, so you will not be at risk from changes in the exchange rate. Typical current hourly rates are shown below:

Text mining and smooth reading will be included free of charge because these are effectively finding and correcting errors that I have already made.

I expect to average around 1,000 words per hour including the second pass, although this will vary according to the difficulty of the handwriting and quality of images. If I find the documents particularly easy to read, I may get up to 1,200 words per hour. I can commit to up to 25 hours per week. For documents with 250-300 words per page, this would mean about 4 pages per hour, or 100 pages per week. I could transcribe 1 million words in 1 year or less. Text mining and smooth reading will add some extra time but no extra cost.

Examples of my work

The identities of my clients and the work I do for them are kept confidential by default, but these clients have chosen to credit me on their websites or social media. These examples show that I am capable of producing high quality work suitable for academic research and publication within the budgets of AHRC and ESRC grants.

• The Power of Petitioning in Seventeenth-Century England (Birkbeck University of London and University College London): transcription and basic XML markup of 2,200 pages of petitions (c. 600,000 words). The petitions that I transcribed for this project have been published at British History Online.
• Corpus Synodalium: a database of medieval church statutes compiled by Professor Rowan Dorin. I contributed around 991,000 words transcribed from printed Latin texts that were too difficult for OCR.
• 1624 Parliament project (History of Parliament Trust): I transcribed the diary of Richard Dyott MP, which was published at British History Online. This was especially difficult work because the original manuscript is water damaged.
• Life in the Suburbs (Centre for Metropolitan History and Cambridge Population Group): I transcribed St Botolph Aldgate burial registers from the 1580s to 1710s into a database which has since been published at SAS-Space and as part of London Lives. I also calendared indemnity bonds and tax records.