PREVENTING DATA LOSS DURING VOLUNTEER TRANSCRIPTION OF HANDWRITTEN LABELS: CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS IN HISTORICAL PALEONTOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS

Historical paleontological collections can provide unique opportunities for scientific research and discovery, but they also often present unique challenges in cases where critical data associated with the physical specimens (such as locality information) are still only preserved in the form of the original handwritten paper labels. As these paper labels fade and disintegrate with time, it becomes increasingly urgent to transcribe them and preserve the information they record. Transcribing labels is a time-consuming process and is often at least partly achieved through the efforts of volunteers.

While deciphering nineteenth century handwritten labels can be challenging, context can be a valuable tool in recognizing familiar words in an unfamiliar script. For volunteers who lack familiarity with paleontological terminology or with historical localities, the resulting lack of context can make transcription more difficult or more prone to error. Here we present resources that can be provided to transcription volunteers to help familiarize them with common names, places, or abbreviations that they may encounter on collection labels, and we also present some tips and resources developed to help them decipher unfamiliar cursive scripts. Our specific recommendations and examples are mostly from nineteenth century paleontological collections of Alabama, but many of the solutions that we present can be applied to other historical collections and transcription projects.