Recent work on the Archive web site

[austin]

Thanks for the positive comments. They are well received by the team involved.

As far as transcription of the Diary is concerned, a plan is in place, hopefully using some technology to speed things along. But, with 200+ pages to do, it will take time under any circumstances. Please bear with us whilst we do some trialling of the approach...

Hugh

That's going to be fun with that handwriting! Just tried the first page on a couple of image to text translators and it really struggles!

(I did a LOT of this when working on archiving Gramophone & Autocar magazines from back issues.) Sometimes it's just easier to do it by hand to be honest.

[Chris KC]

It really needs someone who is accustomed to reading old handwritten documents, they develop an 'eye' for it. 
I don't know if there's any software than can work magic on handwriting but judging by the mess made of many printed publications to be found on Google I wouldn't raise hopes.

[Jack in the Box]

Hugh,

All looks good.

Please let me know if I can be of help with the diary transcription.

Alan

[Archivist]

There is some very clever software that can interpret handwriting called Transkribus' which I looked at and discussed with a couple of Cambridge Academics. The trouble is that it is best suited to very large documents, larger than the 200-odd pages of Harold's Diary, as you have to let it loose on 20 pages, correct it's interpretation, give it a further 20 pages, correct again, and so on. It would take 'learning' its way through the entire diary to get to a point when Transkribus could do the job automatically. That, sadly, became a non-starter.

Our next attempt will be using 'Dragon Naturally Speaking' a piece of software that is used to interpet speech. Someone (you know who you are) can read the diary out load and the software transcribes the speech into a Word document. I think later versions of Word may also have that function built in.

Anyway, that's the approach we are going down. Offers of help are noted and gratefully recieved. I may yet take you up on them...

Hugh

[Chris KC]

Worth a shot Hugh, I used Dragon NS on some diaries I transcribed in the past. Likewise though it has a learning curve and frustratingly gets hung up now and then on something which would have taken a millisecond to type. That's how I learned it also won't transcribe swear words!! You really need to read s-l-o-w-l-y and c-l-e-a-r-l-y and proof read after using it as it can't readily distinguish homophones, for example.

[Douglas Alderson]

Well done a very useful resource.  I would say it would be nice to have an indication of what has been added but in some respects it is nice clicking on a document and finding one that you have forgotten about.  Excellent.

Publication 508a doesn’t appear to display.

[Archivist]

Thanks for pointing out the broken link, Douglas, that has now been rectified. Somehow, that slipped through the broken link routine that we run. We are looking into that...

We are also looking at adding a 'New' flash on newly published materials...

Hugh

[Ivor Hawkins]

Absolutely marvellous, we are indeed privileged to have such a wonderful resource.

Thanks chaps!

[Malcolm Parker]

A superb collection of previously unseen photographs, full of interesting detail.