Call for volunteers to transcribe letters from the front lines
Original hand-written letter decorated with love heart.
The Australian War Memorial is calling for volunteers to transcribe thousands of love letters contained in its National Collection as part of a new digital platform Transcribe.
The project is being launched on Saint Valentine’s Day, 14 February, with the digital release of hundreds of thousands of personal letters, diaries and other hand-written documents that are part of the collections of the Australian War Memorial.
Among the documents is a love letter written by an Australian soldier in the hours before he died in the landing at Gallipoli. There are also love letters from Australian pilots in New Guinea, private letters from nurses serving their country overseas, and years of correspondence between prisoners of war and their lovers back in Australia.
Robyn Van-Dyk, Head of the Research Centre at the Australian War Memorial, said: “The letters are an intimate insight into the daily life of couples separated by war and we are fortunate to now share them as part of this important project.
Terri-Anne Simmonds, Head of Digital Experience at the Memorial said: “Reading these letters is like travelling through time. But because they were written in places like prisoner of war camps and front-line trenches, and are often written in cursive script, they are not always easy to decipher.
“This new website, encourages volunteer transcribers in assisting all Australians by turning these thousands of handwritten documents into digital text – which are then able to be searched and made more discoverable by the public on the Memorial’s website
The new technology will enable the public to transcribe, review, and tag digitised pages from the National Collection.
Volunteer transcribers will join the project team at the official launch to be held at the Australian War Memorial on 14 February 2024 at 9 am.
The project was developed with the assistance of the Australian War Memorial’s partner, Leidos Australia. To register an interest in volunteering, visit the Australian War Memorial’s website.
For more information go to Transcribe.awm.gov.au