The Library of Virginia officially launches its new transcription project today! Check it out here: http://www.virginiamemory.com/transcribe

You can read more about the project over on Out of the Box (the Library of Virginia’s blog): http://www.vamem.com/maj

The current project centers on the Civil War 150 Legacy Project. Thousands of documents were scanned, but transcription of the documents is slow because of the lack of people to do it. The LVA seeks to harness the power of crowd sourcing to solve this problem, as they have done with the Virginia Chronicle website.

In the coming weeks and months, Transcribe will become a part of the larger umbrella called “Making History” — a new home to user engagement efforts. “We’ll be watching how things progress and start working toward the approval process for completed transcriptions, adding content to DigiTool where that’s an option, and adding more content to Transcribe.”

Feel free to publicize the project to your friends and acquaintances. The LVA will be using #TranscribeTuesday on social media to regularly advertise the project and recruit volunteers.