Associated Products
Libraries Receive NEH Grant to Help Develop Multilingual Transcription (Blog Post)Title: Libraries Receive NEH Grant to Help Develop Multilingual Transcription
Author: Travis Willmann
Abstract: A grant of over $300,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities is going to help the University of Texas Libraries contribute to the customization of a Wikipedia-like platform for the collaborative transcription, translation and indexing of archival texts in non-English languages.
The project – “Enabling and Reusing Multilingual Citizen Contributions in the Archival Record” – grew out of a need to provide more accessible digital scholarship platforms for non-English literate archival partners in Latin America. The initial phase of this project will provide an option for non-English literate communities to meaningfully engage and contribute to the Digital Humanities through the interface internationalization and translation of an open source digital scholarship platform.
Date: 2/5/2020
Primary URL:
https://www.lib.utexas.edu/about/news/libraries-receive-neh-grant-help-develop-multilingual-transcriptionPrimary URL Description: Announcement on UT Libraries website
Blog Title: UT Libraries News
Website: University of Texas Libraries Website
Preservation and Ethical Re-Use of Crowdsourced Citizen Scholarship (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Preservation and Ethical Re-Use of Crowdsourced Citizen Scholarship
Author: Albert A. Palacios
Author: Allyssa Guzman
Abstract: Cultural repositories are increasingly tapping into the collective expertise of an interested public via crowdsourcing to improve the intellectual accessibility of handwritten sources and nourish their archival records . However, few are discussing the subsequent preservation and ethical re-use of these citizen contributions in the archival record and scholarship. We do not consider citizen contributors as simply a “sourced crowd;” they are often experts in the subject matter represented in these primary sources, and their collective scholarship (i.e. transcriptions,translations, indexes) is worthy of preservation. Our goal is to configure workflows for the preservation of these collectively-produced resources. We believe that every individual who contributes to the interpretation and understanding of our collections should be given credit for their efforts in the archival record and in scholarship. Based on ethical and practical considerations, our aim is to develop use statements and citation guides for scholars re-using citizen contributions.
Date: 7/22/20
Primary URL:
https://dh2020.adho.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/425_PreservationandEthicalReUseofCrowdsourcedCitizenScholarship.htmlPrimary URL Description: Digital Humanities 2020 Book of Abstracts
Secondary URL:
https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/handle/2152/82192Secondary URL Description: Virtual poster uploaded to UT Libraries' institutional repository, Texas ScholarWorks
Conference Name: Digital Humanities 2020
CNI Project Briefing: Enabling and Reusing Multilingual Citizen Contributions in the Archival Record (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: CNI Project Briefing: Enabling and Reusing Multilingual Citizen Contributions in the Archival Record
Author: Allyssa Guzman
Author: Albert A. Palacios
Abstract: This National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Office of Digital Humanities-funded project arises from the growing consensus that the digital humanities needs to do more to promote and support cultural and linguistic diversity. In order to provide an avenue for non-English literate communities to meaningfully engage and contribute to the digital humanities, we completed the interface internationalization and translation of an open source digital scholarship platform–FromThePage. FromThePage (FtP) is a tool for the collaborative transcription, translation, and indexing of primary source materials, particularly those that are handwritten or not readable by optical character recognition (OCR) technologies. Cultural repositories are increasingly using FtP to tap into the collective expertise of an interested public to improve the intellectual accessibility of handwritten sources and nourish their archival records. However, our research shows that few institutions have considered the subsequent preservation and ethical attribution of these citizen contributions in the archival record and scholarship. Part two of this project seeks to enhance FromThePage’s collection management capabilities and exports to facilitate the development of workflows for preserving and adequately attributing collaborative scholarship for its ethical reuse. Our immediate goal for undertaking this work is twofold: 1) to break down barriers to access University of Texas Libraries’ Spanish and Portuguese-language digital collections that have resulted from anglocentric technology stacks, and 2) to collaborate with current Latin American partners in the interpretation of their digitized collections hosted on our servers.
Date: 11/13/20
Primary URL:
https://www.cni.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Guzman_Palacios_f20.pdfPrimary URL Description: Presentation Slides
Secondary URL:
https://cnifall2020virtualmembershipmeet.sched.com/event/fX67/enabling-and-reusing-multilingual-citizen-contributions-in-the-archival-recordSecondary URL Description: Coalition for Networked Information Fall Membership Meeting Schedule
Conference Name: Coalition for Networked Information Fall Membership Meeting
FromThePage Collection Owner User Study Report (Report)Title: FromThePage Collection Owner User Study Report
Author: Joshua Ortiz Baco
Author: Albert A. Palacios
Author: Allyssa Guzman
Abstract: Needs assessment report based on the feedback of FromThePage collection owners.
Date: 9/15/20
Primary URL:
https://hdl.handle.net/2152/82841Primary URL Description: Report deposited in Texas ScholarWorks, UT Libraries' institutional repository
Access Model: Open access
Advisory Board Grant Update (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Advisory Board Grant Update
Author: Allyssa Guzman
Author: Albert A. Palacios
Author: Joshua Ortiz Baco
Author: Ben Brumfield
Author: Sara Brumfield
Author: Bryce McLin
Abstract: Update to Advisory Board
Date: 10/7/2020
Primary URL:
https://hdl.handle.net/2152/83145Primary URL Description: Presentation deposited in Texas ScholarWorks
Conference Name: Advisory Board Meeting
NEH to fund better internationalization and integration in FromThePage (Blog Post)Title: NEH to fund better internationalization and integration in FromThePage
Author: Ben Brumfield
Abstract: We are thrilled to announce the award of a National Endowment for the Humanities Digital Advanced Grant to our collaborators at University of Texas Libraries and LLILAS Benson Center
This work will fund important enhancements to FromThePage.
Date: 2/6/20
Primary URL:
https://content.fromthepage.com/neh-to-fund-better-internationalization-and-integration-in-fromthepage/Primary URL Description: Blog post from FromThePage.com
Blog Title: FromThePage Blog
Website: FromThePage.com
An Interview with Allyssa Guzman & Albert Palacios of The University of Texas (Blog Post)Title: An Interview with Allyssa Guzman & Albert Palacios of The University of Texas
Author: Nick Allen
Author: Allyssa Guzman
Author: Albert A. Palacios
Author: Sara Brumfield
Abstract: Allyssa Guzman and Albert Palacios of the University of Texas at Austin kindly took the time to answer questions from Sara Brumfield of FromThePage, and discussed their project and experience using the platform.
Guzman is the Digital Scholarship Librarian at the University of Texas at Austin Libraries, and Palacios is the Digital Scholarship Coordinator at the university for the LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections.
Date: 3/23/21
Primary URL:
https://content.fromthepage.com/allyssa-guzman-albert-palacios/Primary URL Description: Blog post on FromThePage.com
Blog Title: FromThePage Blog
Website: FromThePage.com
FromThePage v21.2 (Computer Program)Title: FromThePage v21.2
Author: Ben Brumfield
Author: Sara Brumfield
Abstract: Major release v21.2 includes a new subject details export, usability improvements for document sets, and additional tags to support marginalia and catchwords within transcribed documents.
User Enhancements
New subject details export allows project owners to review subjects in spreadsheet format
Project owners can upload custom profile images to replace gravatar
New Spanish and Portuguese translations for portions of the user interface
Improved wording when a user attempts to access a work they are not authorized to see
Better support for public document sets of private collections
Support for new marginalia and catchword tags
Improved support for soft breaks and word continuation characters
Accessibility improvements for search input fields and other forms
Improved default transcription conventions used by new projects
Display tooltip over editor buttons explaining their use
Reverted to proportional font within the advanced editor
Integration Improvements
Support importing OCR text from beta CONTENTdm PDF IIIF integration
Bug fixes
Fixed several UI glitches with the new advanced editor
Fixed category assignment within a document set context
Wiki-links containing single parentheses no longer break transcriptions
Improved display of expan and reg tags that do not contain abbr or orig attributes
Serviceability Improvements
Performance improvements rendering page thumbnails
The team is grateful to the Folger Shakespeare Library and the Wellcome Library for support for new TEI tags, and to Bryce Mclin for Portuguese translations.
Year: 2021
Primary URL:
https://github.com/benwbrum/fromthepage/releases/tag/v21.2Primary URL Description: Release notes on GitHub
Access Model: Open source
Source Available?: Yes
FromThePage v21.1 (Computer Program)Title: FromThePage v21.1
Author: Sara Brumfield
Author: Ben Brumfield
Abstract: Major release v21.1 includes substantial new support for exporting entire collections, allowing project owners to specify the type and granularity of the formats to be exported. This functionality includes background processing and a new API, which allows bulk exports to be executed programmatically for off-site back-ups. The release also includes TEI tag support for abbr, add, and reg, to allow transcribers better support for mark-up of inserted text as well as medieval and early modern abbreviations and letter-forms.
Year: 2021
Primary URL:
https://github.com/benwbrum/fromthepage/releases/tag/v21.1Primary URL Description: Release notes and source code on GitHub
Access Model: Open source
Source Available?: Yes
FromThePage v20.12 (Computer Program)Title: FromThePage v20.12
Author: Sara Brumfield
Author: Ben Brumfield
Abstract: Major release v20.12 includes a new advanced editor (beta) and several bug fixes.
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://github.com/benwbrum/fromthepage/releases/tag/v20.12Primary URL Description: Source code and release notes on GitHub
Access Model: Open source
Source Available?: Yes
FromThePage v20.11 (Computer Program)Title: FromThePage v20.11
Author: Diego Viola
Author: Ben Brumfield
Author: Sara Brumfield
Abstract: Major release v20.11 includes substantial new support for metadata, allowing new fields to be imported or uploaded in bulk and then used for user navigation, as well as adding new editable fields to works supporting documentary editing work-flows. Notable bug fixes include more intelligent support for hyphens in transcripts, fixes to the project owner activity email contents, and fixes for per-page image uploads.
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://github.com/benwbrum/fromthepage/releases/tag/v20.11Primary URL Description: Source code and release notes on GitHub
Secondary URL:
https://github.com/benwbrum/fromthepage/releases/tag/v20.11.1Secondary URL Description: This release corrects a version control issue in v20.11 which prevented much new functionality from actually being included in that release. It should be used in lieu of v20.11.
Access Model: Open source
Source Available?: Yes
FromThePage v20.9 (Computer Program)Title: FromThePage v20.9
Author: Sara Brumfield
Author: Ben Brumfield
Abstract: Major release including performance and serviceability enhancements, improvements to user experience for collaborators on private projects, and several bug fixes.
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://github.com/benwbrum/fromthepage/releases/tag/v20.9Primary URL Description: Source code and release notes on GitHub
Access Model: Open source
Source Available?: Yes
FromThePage v20.8 (Computer Program)Title: FromThePage v20.8
Author: Sara Brumfield
Author: Ben Brumfield
Author: Diego Viola
Author: Joshua Ortiz Baco
Author: Isabela Barton
Author: Josie Brumfield
Abstract: Note that this release is the first release based on Ruby on Rails 6. It will require upgrades of many of the underlying components. For more details, please review this page on the wiki.
This release contains the following enhancements and bug fixes:
User Enhancements
Beta release of internationalization support. (Funded by a National Endowment for the Humanities Grant to FromThePage and the University of Texas Libraries.)
Beta release of translations to Spanish and Portuguese. (Funded by a National Endowment for the Humanities Grant to FromThePage and the University of Texas Libraries.)
Integration Enhancements
Bulk export of all collections in all formats, including TEI.
Bulk export includes page level granularity.
Serviceability Improvements
Disable subject linking on new projects by default.
The team is grateful to everyone who contributed to this release:
Diego Viola, who worked tirelessly on the upgrade to Rails 6 and keeping the code in sync between the old and new versions for way too long.
Diego, again, and Joshua Ortiz Baco for their work on internationalizing (Diego) and translating (Joshua) the FromThePage interface into Spanish and Portuguese with guidance from Allyssa Guzman and Albert Palacios.
Our summer interns, Isabela Barton and Josie Brumfield, for contributing bug fixes.
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://github.com/benwbrum/fromthepage/releases/tag/v20.8Primary URL Description: Source code and release notes on GitHub
Access Model: Open source
Source Available?: Yes
Collaborative Digital Scholarship Using FromThePage (Course or Curricular Material)Title: Collaborative Digital Scholarship Using FromThePage
Author: Bryce McLin
Abstract: This workshop will provide an overview of FromThePage, a digital tool for collaborative scholarship based on textual sources. Participants will actively explore the platform using materials from the Benson Latin American Collection. By the end of the workshop, participants will have a better understanding of FromThePage’s features, including its transcription, translation, indexing, and annotations capabilities.
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://guides.lib.utexas.edu/c.php?g=873758&p=7873663Primary URL Description: Workshop page including links to slides and workshop recording
Secondary URL:
https://utexas.zoom.us/rec/share/7-ktPAtXQt062K7-74wVKDQqKmWorVZVJr0DXPMbJB0D_WmkhMoyWpkIsOkxk017.SkHIn10OdhfUR886?startTime=1604077365000Secondary URL Description: Recording of workshop
Audience: Graduate
FromThePage User Guide- Spanish Translation (Course or Curricular Material)Title: FromThePage User Guide- Spanish Translation
Author: Albert Palacios
Abstract: User guide for FromThePage software, translated into Spanish
Year: 2021
Primary URL:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/14YlYbpcn0PIXfGzqYzaceUM996UDXNRyony9ei-TJDs/edit?usp=sharingPrimary URL Description: Google Doc containing the working version of the user guide
Audience: Other
FromThePage User Guide- Portuguese Translation (Course or Curricular Material)Title: FromThePage User Guide- Portuguese Translation
Author: Bryce Mclin
Abstract: User guide for the FromThePage software, translated into Portuguese
Year: 2021
Primary URL:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1o_GWzDT7Eb-wgTzk0LGMXGZ-AIitkvpXHcQUknYquLg/edit?usp=sharingPrimary URL Description: Google doc containing the working version of the FromThePage user guide, translated into Portuguese.
Audience: Other
FromThePage v21.5 (Computer Program)Title: FromThePage v21.5
Author: Ben Brumfield
Author: Sara Brumfield
Abstract: Major release v21.5 includes an embedded spreadsheet editor for transcribing ledgers, log books, accounts, census sheets, and other tabular data. It also includes a new incomplete status for page transcriptions, an interface language selector, and new PDF/DOCX export and analysis tools.
Year: 2021
Primary URL:
https://github.com/benwbrum/fromthepage/releases/tag/v21.5Primary URL Description: Link to source code on GitHub
Access Model: Open source
Source Available?: Yes
FromThePage v21.7 (Computer Program)Title: FromThePage v21.7
Author: Ben Brumfield
Author: Sara Brumfield
Abstract: Major release v21.7 includes revisions to the transcription status flow, a new "Download" tab letting project owners launch work-specific exports, a footnote tag, and several bug fixes and usability improvements
Year: 2021
Primary URL:
https://github.com/benwbrum/fromthepage/releases/tag/v21.7Primary URL Description: Source code on GitHub
Access Model: Open source
Source Available?: Yes
FromThePage v21.9 (Computer Program)Title: FromThePage v21.9
Author: Ben Brumfield
Author: Sar Brumfield
Abstract: Major release v21.9 includes new export formats for researchers (MS Word, PDF) and for project owners (Static Site), as well as direct integration with textual analysis tools Voyant and Word Trees. It also includes a new reviewer dashboard and the configuration option to restrict the authorized reviewers to a defined set of users.
Year: 2021
Primary URL:
https://github.com/benwbrum/fromthepage/releases/tag/v21.9Primary URL Description: Source code on GitHub
Access Model: Open source
Source Available?: Yes
FromThePage v21.9 Point Release (Computer Program)Title: FromThePage v21.9 Point Release
Author: Ben Brumfield
Author: Sara Brumfield
Author: Bryce Mclin
Author: Abisai Perez Zamarripa
Abstract: This release adds Spanish and Portuguese translations to new messages for the 21.9 release.
Year: 2021
Primary URL:
https://github.com/benwbrum/fromthepage/releases/tag/v21.9.1Access Model: Open Source
Source Available?: Yes
FromThePage v22.2 (Computer Program)Title: FromThePage v22.2
Author: Ben Brumfield
Author: Sara Brumfield
Abstract: Major release v22.2 includes a new feature allowing collaborative metadata creation/revision, internationalization support for metadata, and workflow improvements for volunteers and project managers.
Year: 2022
Primary URL:
https://github.com/benwbrum/fromthepage/releases/tag/v22.2Primary URL Description: Source code on GitHub
Access Model: Open source
Source Available?: Yes
After the Transcript Symposium (Conference/Institute/Seminar)Title: After the Transcript Symposium
Abstract: The virtually-held symposium, After the Transcription, brought project managers working on collaborative transcription projects into a community of practice. Participants in the symposium presented case studies from their work and then were guided in group discussions on topics such as the definition of a "meaningful" contribution, rights over transcriptions, crediting of student and citizen collaborators, and the incorporation of contributed work into institutional repositories.
Date Range: 4/19/22-4/21/22
Location: Virtual symposium
La habilitación y atribución ética de contribuciones multilingües en la transcripción colaborativa de archivos (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: La habilitación y atribución ética de contribuciones multilingües en la transcripción colaborativa de archivos
Author: Albert A. Palacios
Abstract: Este proyecto surge como una respuesta al creciente llamado internacional de que debemos hacer más para promover y apoyar la diversidad cultural, lingüística y de conocimiento en el campo de las Humanidades Digitales y en la interpretación de archivos. Nuestro objetivo para emprender este trabajo es doble. Primeramente, queremos romper la barrera lingüística que las tecnologías creadas para trabajar fuentes manuscritas colaborativamente, que son principalmente anglocéntricas, presentan a los usuarios que solo pueden navegar plataformas en español y portugués. Recientemente, repositorios culturales ubicados en los Estados Unidos han estado utilizando cada vez más herramientas de “crowdsourcing” para conectar un público interesado a sus colecciones digitales, aprovechando la experiencia colectiva para mejorar la accesibilidad intelectual y nutrir los metadatos de fuentes manuscritas. Con el fin de proporcionar una vía más para que personas y comunidades que no puedan leer el inglés se involucren de manera significativa a las Humanidades Digitales, completamos la internacionalización y la traducción de la interfaz de una plataforma de código abierto llamada FromThePage (o “DeLaPágina” en español). FromThePage es una herramienta para la transcripción, traducción e indexación colaborativa de fuentes primarias, en particular aquellas que están escritas a mano y en que no se puede utilizar tecnologías de reconocimiento óptico de caracteres (OCR) para extraer el texto automáticamente.
Date: 11/9/2021
Conference Name: Quinto Encuentro de Humanistas Digitales, RedHD association
Enabling and Reusing Multilingual Citizen Contributions in the Archival Record (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Enabling and Reusing Multilingual Citizen Contributions in the Archival Record
Author: Allyssa Guzman
Abstract: This project arises from the growing consensus that the Digital Humanities needs to do more to promote and support cultural and linguistic diversity. In order to provide an avenue for non-English literate communities to meaningfully engage and contribute to the Digital Humanities, we completed the interface internationalization and translation of an open source digital scholarship platform–FromThePage. FromThePage (FtP) is a tool for the collaborative transcription, translation, and indexing of primary source materials, particularly those that are handwritten or not readable by optical character recognition (OCR) technologies. Cultural repositories are increasingly using FtP to tap into the collective expertise of an interested public to improve the intellectual accessibility of handwritten sources and nourish their archival records. However, our research shows that few institutions have considered the subsequent preservation and ethical attribution of these citizen contributions in the archival record and scholarship. Part two of this project seeks to enhance FromThePage’s collection management capabilities and exports to facilitate the development of workflows for preserving and adequately attributing collaborative scholarship for its ethical reuse. Our immediate goal for undertaking this work is twofold: 1) to break down barriers to access our organization’s Spanish and Portuguese-language digital collections that have resulted from Anglocentric technology stacks, and 2) to collaborate with current Latin American partners in the interpretation of their digitized collections hosted on our servers. We hope that attendees learn about ways to enable ethical reuse of the products of crowd-sourced scholarship.
Date: 10/21/2022
Conference Name: Access 2021
Advisory Board Grant Update (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Advisory Board Grant Update
Author: Allyssa Guzman
Author: Albert A. Palacios
Author: Sara Brumfield
Author: Ben Brumfield
Author: Bryce Mclin
Abstract: Update to grant advisory board
Date: 7/28/2021
Leveraging Collaborative Scholarship and Handwritten Text Recognition Technology to “Read” the Spanish Colonial Archive (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Leveraging Collaborative Scholarship and Handwritten Text Recognition Technology to “Read” the Spanish Colonial Archive
Author: Albert A. Palacios
Abstract: Presentation hosted by the Society of American Archivists--Latin American and Caribbean Cultural Heritage Archives Section. Presentation was part of the section's Desmantelando Fronteras/Breaking Down Borders Webinar.
Date: 2/24/2022
Primary URL:
https://www.facebook.com/events/516635536213607/?active_tab=discussionData repository for transcriptions (Database/Archive/Digital Edition)Title: Data repository for transcriptions
Author: Albert A. Palacios
Abstract: Open access data repository for transcriptions produced under the grant. Transcriptions are available in txt files in various versions to facilitate reusability. The repository is organized by collection name. Transcriptions created under this grant are of materials in various archives in the Benson Latin American Collection.
Year: 2022
Primary URL:
https://dataverse.tdl.org/dataverse/blacAccess Model: Open access
Leveraging Handwritten Text Recognition Technology to “Read” the Spanish Colonial Archive (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Leveraging Handwritten Text Recognition Technology to “Read” the Spanish Colonial Archive
Author: Albert A. Palacios
Abstract: Presentation was part of a panel titled, "New Digital Methodologies in the Study of the Colonial World", given during the Latin American Studies Association conference.
Date: 5/24/2021
Conference Name: Latin American Studies Association 2021
Fondo Real de Cholula (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Fondo Real de Cholula
Author: Albert A. Palacios
Author: Lidia E. Gomez Garcia
Abstract: Presentation on the collaborative transcription of the Fondo Real de Cholula. While the focus was on the digitization and teaching collaborations that have resulted from the University of Texas at Austin and the Meritorious Autonomous University of Puebla, the presentation included a brief overview of the grant project.
Date: 11/4/2021
Primary URL:
https://www.historicas.unam.mx/eventos/2021/coloquio_humanidades_digitales_lenguas_indigenas.htmlhttp://Primary URL Description: Conference schedule
Inclusion in the Digital Humanities (Public Lecture or Presentation)Title: Inclusion in the Digital Humanities
Abstract: Presentation primarily focused on methods LLILAS Benson is deploying to broaden the inclusion of multilingual scholars in the creation and description of digital archives and projects. There was a brief overview of the grant project given. Presentation was part of the National University of Tres de Febrero (Argentina) "What Will Come: Digital Humanities" series.
Author: Albert A. Palacios
Date: 9/14/2021
Location: Virtual
Primary URL:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbxrfOMzRb8Primary URL Description: Recording
Collaborating on Manuscript Transcription with FromThePage (Course or Curricular Material)Title: Collaborating on Manuscript Transcription with FromThePage
Author: Abisai Perez Zamarripa
Abstract: This workshop introduces a collaborative platform that contains manuscript collections from university archives and allows people to transcribe and post documents for transcription. The session will focus particularly on the primary sources provided by LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections. The workshop is open to all people interested in archival research.
Year: 2022
Audience: Graduate