Introduce yourself and meet the crowd.loc.gov community.

Hi Crowd!  I’m Lauren Algee, another of the Community Managers for crowd.loc.gov. I’m excited to help lifelong learners and the historically curious out there connect with the Library of Congress and its vast and fascinating collections.

My background is as an archivist and before coming to the Library of Congress I worked at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History in Austin, Texas, the National Gallery of Art, and the DC Public Library (DCPL).  At DCPL I managed the library’s digital local history collections. I also co-founded the DC Public Library's Memory Lab, a public space for digitization and learning how to care for your personal digital archives. I now serve on the board of the Memory Lab Network and encourage you to see if there’s a Memory Lab in your area!

Hi everyone! I'm Meghan and I'm a Community Manager, too. I'm really looking forward to collaborating, sharing interesting things we find in our collections, and hearing more about what sparks your interest in history. The Library of Congress has such depth of resources and we're thrilled people are keen to help make them more searchable and useful to many people.

Before I joined the Library of Congress, I had the chance to learn from and partner with volunteers at the Smithsonian Transcription Center. I hope you'll explore those projects, as well. My background is as a historian and cultural anthropologist - across my research experiences, I've tried to understand the ways people share information, work together, work through conflict, and use stories and digital spaces to understand and relate to each other.

Can't wait to hear more about what you think of and find in our first challenge: Letters to Lincolnhttps://crowd.loc.gov/campaigns/letters-to-lincoln/!

Hi folks! I'm Elaine and the fourth Community Manager. Along with my colleagues, I am beyond excited to collaborate and learn from you all. Please let us know what you find interesting, what sparks your curiosity or what features you'd like to see in the application.

Prior to joining the Library of Congress, I was working at 18F, an office within the General Services Administration. 18F collaborates with other agencies to improve how government serves the public through technology.

CROWD looks amazing! I can't wait to give it a try.

Hi all. I'm a processing archivist here at NARA, and community manager for the "Researchers Help" space here on History Hub. Having spent the first half of my career working with NARA's photo collections, I am naturally drawn to LC's fabulous collections too. Recently I spent a great deal of time annoying the Prints and Photographs staff with caption submissions for some of the distressingly large number of "no caption" images in the National Photo Co. and Harris & Ewing collections. The most rewarding part was identifying two of NARA's early division chiefs:

                                               LC-H2-B-8017 and 8018 (P&P)

                                                      Roscoe Hill, Division of Classification, ca. 1935

                                             LC-H2-B-8253 (P&P)

                                                    Thomas M. Owen, Division of Accessions, ca. 1935

     With over 30,000 images labeled "no caption" in the Harris & Ewing collection (and many more with such

     informative captions as "Man seated at desk"), this might make an excellent CROWD project for the future!

     Best wishes to everyone involved with this exciting new venture.

Hi everyone.  I'm ShawnMarie from PA.  I have a little bit of a paper problem - in love with all of it.  :-)  My favorite things are women's magazines from the war years, recipes and maps.  I have a degree in Geography but my day job is in IT Data management.  I've always wanted to be a librarian and to help people find things they want to know more about so hoping I can help out this way.

ShawnMarie

Hi everyone! My name is Sheena and I'm from Ohio. I am the director of the Hardin County Historical Museums, Inc. in Kenton Ohio. My favorite things are old pictures and letters. I have a Master of Arts degree in History. I'm really looking forward to being able to contribute!

Hi everyone! I'm Filomena from Portugal and I work in a University Library. I rely like history and everything related to books. I can't even get near a bookshop, it is my weakness, books. All kind of books and stories. And I'm very happy to collaborate with your project.

Hi everyone!

I'm Jennifer and I'm from California.  I'm a scientist, but I also enjoy reading and US history.  I love libraries too and am happy to contribute to a project that will help a major library make more historical US documents more accessible to everyone.  If there are any documents from scientists that need to be transcribed I would be very excited to help out with that as well.

PS, When I was in Washington DC a few years ago I took a tour of the Jefferson building and it was love at first sight

Hi. My name is Henry. I have a lifelong interest in History. I ahe read so much on Lincoln but was disappointed that EVERYBODY wanted to work on his papers and they were done quickly. I have chosen to focus on Mary Church Terrell. Amazing woman. One of the founders of the NAACP. She lived from 1863-1954. I'm learning a lot about Jim Crow and the discrimination African-Americans faced over the years. I have become adept at reading her handwriting so if anybody has questions, feel free to contact me. Among the tips, she frequently does not cross her small t's so they sometimes look like L's. She also will carry over words from one line to the other without a hyphen. If I think of anything else I will post it.

Hi all, I'm a government attorney by profession, but I took up genealogy as a hobby about 20 years ago. In the process of researching my ancestors, I became pretty adept at deciphering the handwriting in old documents. I studied the different styles of 19th century copperplate scripts and learned how to puzzle out the meaning from the scribbles. I hope I can put my somewhat estoteric skills to work for this historical project.

Hi folks --

I live in Durham, NC.  I'm a fan of history and have always loved primary documents.  I've long been a fan of the oral histories and photos from the Depression era that were made available by the LOC fifteen or so years ago. 

I love a challenge and it's interesting to me how quickly my visual system is being retrained to be able to read handwriting again, though I see so little of it now in my day-to-day life. 

So far, two of my favorites are a letter from someone who lost his position as paymaster, begging/demanding to be reinstated (I felt put-off and sorry for him in turns while reading), and the gift of a salmon by a Maine eccentric (and it was jarring to remember that as recently as 150 years ago, salmon was native). 

I look forward to transcribing more of these letters, and things from other collections.  I'd be particularly interested in working on earlier materials after these.

-Christy

Welcome Christy Ferguson, Rebecca M, and Henry Rosenberg!  I'm excited that you've joined us in this transcription adventure and that you bring varied and interesting interest (but uniform enthusiasm) to the Library's collections!

Hello! I'm a social studies and science teacher in southern WV. I was initially drawn to the Lincoln papers, but after discovering the Mary Church Terrell campaign I was hooked. I am particularly interested in early 20th century America and I am inspired by her work. Since French was one of the areas I studied in college (in addition to history and psychology) I have enjoyed transcribing the documents in French, and I wish there was a way to search specifically for these documents. If there is, let me know. Like others, I hope that be assisting with this project I will contribute to history in some small way and learn along the way myself.

Hi, All --

I'm one of those "lifelong learner" types who likes to do a variety of things. I've been a children's and reference librarian, a proofreader, an elementary school supply (substitute) teacher, and crochet designer and teacher, and, most recently, a dedicated transcription volunteer with the Smithsonian Institution's Freemen's Bureau Project.

Glad to be here, too!

Beth

My name is Julianne Mangin, but you can call me Julie.  I retired from the Library of Congress in 2011.  I was a librarian and website developer.  When I arrived in 1998, I was put to work on the online exhibits.  I loved the work.  I was also one of the people who coordinated the look and content of the reading room websites.

In retirement, I have been researching my family history and have written a book, which I am trying to get published.  You can find out about it by going to a URL that is my full name plus .com.  I also research local cemeteries and recently participated in a county survey of known burial sites. I have another website called petcemeterystories dot net where I post articles on the history I have uncovered about Aspin Hill Cemetery for Pet Animals, now known as Aspin Hill Memorial Park.

There are two reasons I have decided to participate in this crowd sourcing endeavor.  The first is because I needed just this kind of help while researching the family history.  This is my way of paying back.  The second is that much of my family story has to do with the many women in my ancestry who were mentally ill patients at state hospitals in New England.  I read in your newsletter that the history of psychiatry is a future project, and I would really like to see what you have.  In the meantime, I am working on the Mary Church Terrell papers, so I will be ready.  Incidentally, I transcribed some letters in French in that collection.  It was a challenge, but I didn't know if you have any other transcribers with that ability.

Julie

Hello everyone! I am a public history grad student who loves documents and just really want to get my feet wet in the world of archives. This looks like it's going to be so much fun! I love research, books, American history, and this is like the best Christmas present ever!

Thanks!

Jess

It looks as though folks have stopped introducing themselves. I think it's great to know a bit about fellow transcribers and reviewers, though, so here I am.

I'm a retired music cataloger from the Library of Congress (which is how I know Julie Mangin). I have worked with manuscripts a bit here and there, and with correspondence in German and English. It's a giant puzzle, and I love being able to decipher handwriting. I've flitted about a bit, from Clara Barton to a few Lincoln letters, to Mary Church Terrell's German diaries (but not the ones in the unreadable script!). It's great fun, and it's nice to meet a bunch of like-minded people. Hope to see more of you as time goes on. It's wonderful to be in on the project as it develops, and perhaps contribute to the process.

Sharon McKinley