Schaffhausen Adomnán (Stadtbibl., Gen. 1)

Transcribing with From the Page

Once you sign up for an account, a new Transcribe tab will appear above each page.

You can create or edit transcriptions by modifying the text entry field and saving. Each modification is stored as a separate version of the page, so that it should be easy to revert to older versions if necessary.

Registered users can also add notes to pages to comment on difficult words, suggest readings, or discuss the texts.

Detailed transcription guidelines are provided for each manuscript of challenge.

Helpful Documentation

Advanced Markup

Check out the From the Page demo video here.

Transcription Help

Do you need more help with all the different forms? Try some of the following resources:

Summary introduction to insular minuscule from the Vatican Library

Introduction to Irish insular minuscule letter forms from the van Hamel stichting

Summary overview of Irish insular minuscule letter forms with hover function.

Capelli Online. Searchable database of medieval abbreviations of all kinds.

Need help identifying which Latin word you might be looking at? Try Enigma.

Letter forms cheat sheet (insular minuscule from Schaffhausen Gen 1)

Most common compendia and abbreviations

Early Irish TranSCRIPTion Challenge

This Transcription Challenge project helps you learn how to read early medieval Irish manuscripts by focusing on practice. It offers anyone interested a chance to get familiar with Irish script by offering simple introductions and a user-friendly transcription platform. Furthermore, the text of the community transcriptions will be made freely available after a manuscript is complete.

Purpose of the project

In addition to being lots of fun, this project also has an academic and educational function. This project explores ways to teach (Irish) palaeography to a wide range of audiences in an accessible manner and explores user-friendly options for setting transcription standards.

Scope

This project will have timed transcription challenges periodically. Behind the scenes it also involves a training project with student volunteers. Do you have students interested in joining? Or are you a student yourself? Send me an email for more information!

Your feedback is always welcome. Contact me at volmern[at]tcd.ie

Linking Subjects

To create a link within a transcription, surround the text with double square braces.

Example: Say that we want to create a subject link for “Dr. Owen” in the text:

Place [[ and ]] around Dr Owen like this:

When you save the page, a new subject will be created for “Dr. Owen”, and the page will be added to its index. You can add an article about Dr. Owen—perhaps biographical notes or references—to the subject by clicking on “Dr. Owen” and clicking the Edit tab.

To create a subject link with a different name from that used within the text, use double braces with a pipe as follows: [[official name of subject|name used in the text]]. For example:

This will create a subject for “Dr. Owen's wife” and link the text “his wife” to that subject.

Renaming Subjects

In the example above, we don't know Dr. Owen's wife's name, but created a subject for her anyway. If we later discover that her name is “Juanita”, all we have to do is edit the subject title:

1. Click on “his wife” on the page, or navigate to “Dr. Owen's wife” on the home page for the project.
2. Click the Edit tab.
3. Change “Dr. Owen's wife” to “Juanita Owen”.

This will change the links on the pages that mention that subject, so our page is automatically updated:

Combining Subjects

Occasionally you may find that two subjects actually refer to the same person. When this happens, rather than painstakingly updating each link, you can use the Combine button at the bottom of the subject page.

For example, if one page reads:

while a different page contains

you can combine “chicken” with “fried chicken” by going to the “chicken” article and reviewing the combination suggestions at the bottom of the screen. Combining “fried chicken” into “chicken” will update all links to point to “chicken” instead, copy any article text from the “fried chicken” article onto the end of the “chicken” article, then delete the “fried chicken” subject.

Auto-linking Subjects

Whenever text is linked to a subject, that fact can be used by the system to suggest links in new pages. At the bottom of the transcription screen, there is an Autolink button. This will refresh the transcription text with suggested links, which should then be reviewed and may be saved.

Using our example, the system already knows that “Dr. Owen” links to “Dr. Owen” and “his wife” links to “Juanita Owen”. If a new page reads:

pressing Autolink will suggest these links:

In this case, the link around “Dr. Owen” is correct, but we must edit the suggested link that incorrectly links Sam Jones's wife to “Juanita Owen”. The autolink feature can save a great deal of labor and prevent collaborators from forgetting to link a subject they previously thought was important, but its suggestions still need to be reviewed before the transcription is saved.