Thanks for your help!

You may remember earlier this year we asked for help in transcribing two autograph albums in Nebraska Memories that belonged to May Martin Ellis and her husband John Ellis. The project was a great success and it only took one week for both albums to be transcribed. We want to thank everyone who helped make this project a success. For those of you not familiar with the project these albums contain many pages of handwritten inscriptions. Some are easy to read while others take a bit more effort to decipher. Transcribing the handwriting makes it easier to read the inscriptions and makes the albums searchable. As you read the transcriptions remember we did our best to type the text as it was written and did not fix any of errors.    This means you will find phrases such as “always paddle your one cenue” and “In the depth of thine- Effeetiend[?] , please plant a sweat Fore-get me not.” The question mark in the brackets means that we were unable to clearly read the handwriting and typed our best guess. If you are have having a hard time deciphering those phrases my guess is that they meant to say “always paddle your own canoe” and “In the depth of thine affection plant a sweet forget me not”. The transcriptions available in Nebraska Memories can be viewed in three different places in the interface. While I’m focusing on these two albums the viewing options apply to all items in the collection that include transcriptions. Let me show you how you can search and view the transcribed text. While working with these albums I remember reading at least one reference to dishes that I found amusing but unfortunately I don’t know which album it was in. A search for the word dishes shows that the word appears in both albums. I am going to look at May’s album. When I click on the link to her album from the search results page I’m taken directly to page 42 in the album where Eva has written a note to May about washing dishes. As I mentioned there are three places where the transcription can be viewed. The first place is towards the bottom of the page in the area labeled Description. The second place is on the Text tab. This tab is located just above the album page between the Image tab and the search box. These two tabs can be used to switch between the Image view and Text (transcript) view of the page. After clicking on the Text tab you will see the word dishes highlighted. Also note when you are on the Text tab that up and down arrows now appear next to the phrase “2 found in document”. Use these arrows to move to the previous and next instances of your search term. The last way to view the transcription is by clicking on the View Image & Text link. This view allows you to see the transcribed text and the image at the same time. To adjust the widths of the text and image area click on the slider button and drag it left or right. Use the thumbnails at the bottom of the page to move from page to page. As the New Year begins I hope you take a few minutes to explore these albums and all of the digitized photographs, negatives, postcards, maps, lantern slides, books and other materials available through Nebraska Memories. Nebraska Memories is a cooperative project to digitize Nebraska-related historical and cultural heritage materials and make them available to researchers of all ages via the Internet. Nebraska Memories is brought to you by the Nebraska Library Commission. If your institution is interested in participating in Nebraska Memories, see http://nlc.nebraska.gov/nebraskamemories/participation.aspx for more information, or contact Beth Goble, Historical Projects Librarian, or Devra Dragos, Technology & Access Services Director.