Fourth Annual EMROC Transcribathon

18 September 2018
Jane Dawson’s Recipe Book:
Transcribing to Discover the Early Modern Middle Class

Please join the Early Modern Recipe Online Collective (EMROC) for our third annual Transcribathon, as we make Jane Dawson’s seventeenth-century recipe manuscript searchable for users around the globe. We will have transcription groups working in at least a dozen locations, on three continents, with individuals coming and going virtually throughout the day.

Using the Folger Shakespeare Library’s online transcription platform Dromio, we’ll collaborate to transcribe the late-seventeenth-century cookbook of Jane Dawson (Folger V.b.14). The manuscript contains both culinary and medicinal recipes, features a clear hand, and seems to reflect a middle class (rather than noble) household’s inner workings. For more background on the collection, see EMROC’s Dawson Project page, <a href=”http://emroc.hypotheses.org/ongoing-projects/the-dawson-project” rel=”noopener” target=”_blank”>here</a>.

We will have transcription groups working at the Folger Shakespeare Library, the University of Essex, North Carolina State University, the University of Akron, the University of North Carolina Charlotte, and other campuses, with individuals coming and going virtually throughout the day. Along the way, participants will virtually meet scholars from around the world and emerge from the day with a line for their CV—all from their own home, classroom, or office! NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY – we’ll walk you through the coding and offer pointers on the handwriting.

Interested in joining our Transcribathon virtually? Contast Lisa Smith before September 18, at lisa.smith@essex.ac.uk or @historybeagle, or jump in on the day.

On this page, please find a series of resources to orient, help, and inform.

Using Dromio 101 for the 2018 Transcribathon. Dromio is our transcription platform. It’s intuitive and super easy to use.

Glossary of XML buttons. Dromio has a number of XML buttons. Here is a handy list of what they do.

Encoding in XML – A Quick Reference

Key links

EMROC blog (for quick and dirty blog posts as things happen, as well as more thoughtful posts later)

Twitter (for those of us live-tweeting the event, at #EMROCtranscribes)

Dromio FAQ (for questions about using tags, and much else)

Sample Transcription from Winche Manuscript (to see a model of a “typical” page)