Transkribus and the Georgian Papers Programme Tabular-Formatted Manuscripts

FAIN: HAA-266513-19

College of William and Mary (Williamsburg, VA 23186-0002)
Deborah Cornell (Project Director: January 2019 to May 2024)
Zhenming Liu (Co Project Director: July 2019 to January 2022)

A project to explore the application of the open-source Handwritten Text Recognition tool, Transkribus, to machine-driven transcription of handwritten materials of tabular formats, such as financial records and inventories, using materials from the Georgian Papers Programme.

When scholars have access to machine readable files of text, they can perform data mining, text analysis, visualization, and basic search and discovery with ease and precision. This proposal seeks a Level II Digital Humanities Advancement Grant to experiment with open-source Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) tool, Transkribus to address the challenge of mass transcription of handwritten materials in complex tabular format, such as accounts, and inventories. The project will use a subset of materials in the Georgian Papers Programme. NEH funding would support: a) development of layout analysis tools, templates, and output of data in csv files for Transkribus; b) algorithmic processing of approximately 50,000 images; c) writing documentation, code, and user guides; and d) presentation of project work to relevant communities. This use of Transkribus will serve as a case study for developing methods for transcription of tabular materials and will contribute to HTR models.