This year, Ipswich Libraries launched a new program called “Become a Text Detective” and invited members of the community to assist with the text correction of Trove’s digitised newspapers. The response from the public was incredible with over 50 people participating in the program since February.
Throughout the year, library staff collated lists of newspaper articles relevant to Ipswich local history and each participant attended a hands-on training session to learn how to text correct and tag these Trove articles. Since its commencement, program graduates have collectively corrected over 100,000 lines of text which has improved the accuracy of Trove search results. One of the benefits of this program has been the ability to engage the community in a project that not only benefits local history researchers but Trove users across the world.
If you’d like to become involved in the “Become a Text Detective” program, bookings are now open for our first session in 2016.