National Archives looking for volunteers to read cursive documents [View all]

More than 200 years worth of U.S. documents are in need of transcribing (or at least classifying) and the vast majority of them are handwritten in cursive – requiring people who know the flowing, looped form of penmanship.

Reading cursive is a superpower,” said Suzanne Issacs, a community manager with the National Archives Catalog in Washington D.C.

She is part of the team that coordinates the more than 5,000 Citizen Archivists helping the Archive read and transcribe some of the more than 300 million digitized objects in its catalog. And they're looking for volunteers with an increasingly rare skill.

“There's no application,” she said. “You just pick a pick a record that hasn't been done and read the instructions. It's easy to do for a half hour a day or a week.

Volunteer link: https://www.archives.gov/citizen-archivist/get-started-transcribing

Full story link (USA Today)
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/can-you-read-cursive-it-s-a-superpower-the-national-archives-is-looking-for/ar-BB1rjsYP?