By Arielle Feuerstein ’24
Since last summer, I have been researching digital transcription tools to use in the study of medieval manuscripts, such as Dartmouth’s Brut Chronicle. I began my research where previous research assistants, Qingyu Wang, GR ‘16 and Jennifer Zhong ‘18, left off several years ago. In 2016, Jennifer had prepared a spreadsheet of many different transcription tools, some of which were fully operational and some of which were only in Beta. I revisited this spreadsheet, updating it to reflect the current technological landscape. Here are my findings:
2023 Spreadsheet
- Archive copy for downloading: https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/faculty_other/14/
- Project history: https://sites.dartmouth.edu/RemixBrut/tag/transcription/
New Resources
In the time between 2016 and now, several new resources became available, and many progressed from the Beta stage to a fully usable program. Archetype, a follow-up project to DigiPal, emerged; programs like eLaborate, Edition Visualization Technology, and Digital Mappa left the Beta stage. I also discovered Transcript 2.6, which has been around since 2003, but was not included on the initial 2016 spreadsheet. One resource, From the Page, was created more recently and has thousands of crowdsource users (not just for medieval manuscripts!). The digital landscape is constantly evolving and I am sure that it will continue to do so. However, as new tools appeared, many more also faded out.
Technological Decay
Some of the tools that Wang and Zhong initially highlighted in their research in 2016 were no longer usable by the time I tried to visit them in 2023. Some, like TEIplusWP or TEI-XML-Schema, had expired links which led to error pages, while others, like Diplomat, were still accessible from the internet and available for download, but the software itself was incompatible with current operating systems. Then there are cases like DigiPal, in which the program is still available, but the group that created it has announced they will stop updating it, instead building upon the original code to create follow-up projects. In less than a decade, several of the initial programs were unusable, which goes to show how unpredictable the longevity of these resources can be.
Transcription-Related Resources
In my research, I also found several tools which did not digitally transcribe a manuscript directly, but they are either educational resources for medieval manuscript study or annotation programs. These include tools to learn about reading medieval manuscript fonts and script, a searchable lexicon of Middle English language, and tools to create semantic annotation. There are many ways to approach digital transcription, and although the transcription tools are likely the most direct strategy, one could also transcribe by hand with the help of these resources.
