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You can see a
small sample of work scanned under the Plowshare grant at http://www.mcusa-archives.org/plowshares/
Project Update:
Art Smucker,
retired professor of biology at Goshen College is volunteering his time
and talents as on-site project coordinator. Art trains volunteers,
trouble shoots, and moves the scanning forward. Kendra Nichols,
Greencroft staff volunteer coordinator, links volunteers with the
project. We're grateful for the progress!
Launching a New Phase
We are about to
launch a new phase of the Gutenberg to Gigabytes project in partnership
with Greencroft Retirement Community, Goshen, Indiana. Greencroft
residents will volunteer their time and energy to scan archival
documents. The Mennonite Church USA Archives--Goshen will provide the
hardware, software, training, and, of course, the documents. Scanned
documents will then be made available to researchers around the globe,
on CDs and on the Internet.
Greencroft
volunteers will give this labor-intensive project a major boost. The
five stages are:
1) preparation (removing staples and paper clips, and checking the
order of the documents in the file,
2) scanning the documents (using a flatbed scanner for fragile and
oversized documents, and a high-speed sheet feeder for documents in
good condition),
3) quality control (reviewing the scanned image for clarity),
4) entering identifying information for tracking docuemnts, and
5) proofreading the digital text after Optical Character Recognition
(OCR) conversion.
A successful launch
in Goshen will lead to a another phase of scanning documents at the
Mennonite Church USA Archives--North Newton, Kansas.
Fund balance:
$64,850 (The majority of the original goal of $300,000 was earmarked
for labor. Greencroft volunteers are making it possible to move the
project forward with less money!)
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