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Something fun and innovative in the world of archiving.

How did one institution attract 50,000-plus volunteers to help with an archiving project?

The National Library of Finlandis in the process of digitizing its archives so that they are fully searchable on the Internet.

To help with the process, The National Library of Finland teamed up with Finnish technology company Microtask to come up with an innovative solution: make a game of it. Granted, it’s hard to imagine how anything like checking manuscript text against a computer’s digital interpretation could really be fun. But Microtask saw things differently—instead of pages of repetitive work, they broke down each individual word-check into what they (appropriately) call microtasks.

Play Mole Bridge and Mole Hunt at: DIGITALKOOT

Mole Bridge:

Snapshot image of the game Molebridge developed by Microtask. Image credit: [1]

Is a fast-paced typing challenge. An image of a digitized word from the original manuscript appears at the top of the screen. The player must type the word, as best he or she can read it, as quickly as possible. The typed word helps build a “bridge” that ensures the safety of some adorably cute, but evidently suicidal moles, who tirelessly try to cross the void. The quicker the words are entered, the more moles make it to safety. Words that are indecipherable—or too difficult to type (American keyboards lack the å, ö, and ä symbols common in Finnish) — can be skipped without penalty.

Mole Hunt:

Snapshot image of the game Molehunt developed by Microtask. Image credit: [2]

Has cute critters that hold up signs with individual manuscript words and the computer’s interpretation of each word below. Players identify whether or not the computer’s recognition of the word is accurate.

To read the full article:

http://archivemediapartners.com/AMPed/
Digital Archiving: Fun for everyone?
September 23rd, 2011
by Molly Jean Schoen

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