EmailOn 3 August 2011, you were kind enough to publish my letter inviting readers of the paper to join a collaborative proof-reading project. The aim was to remove transcription errors in an online archive that presents, in a freely accessible form, the contents of the two weekly magazines – Household Words and All the Year Round – edited by Charles Dickens during the last 20 years of his life. This was a considerable challenge, involving the close reading of some 30m words of transcript, and the making and moderating of corrections.
I am delighted to report back that thousands responded to our call – at time of writing, we have 3,218 registered editors – and we succeeded in completing the correction at 11am on Tuesday 7 February 2012, which was the exact bicentenary of Dickens's birth. (I must confess we held back some pages we'd corrected ourselves before submitting them, so we could hit the date exactly.)
This task involved a huge amount of dedication, expertise and commitment on behalf of our volunteers, many of whom were delightfully exacting. It was also an exhilarating if occasionally nerve-wracking experience – the server hosting our website was hit by lightning at one point, just when an army of volunteers were attempting to sign up. But the end result has been to create an extraordinarily valuable database showcasing two long-neglected Victorian periodicals, as well as the editorial brilliance of one of our greatest writers. We calculate we have reached 99.9998% accuracy. A facility still exists for reporting the tiny proportion of errors that remain.
I would have written to thank your readers earlier, but the launch conference for the project and the usual demands of the academic year have intervened. Our thanks are heartfelt nonetheless. The site can be accessed at the address below.
With enormous thanks,
John Drew
Dickens Journals Online
Leverhulme Trust project director, University of Buckingham
www.djo.org.uk
