Abstract

The GB1900 project transcribed almost all text on 1:10,650 mapping covering Great Britain, published circa 1900: 2.6 million geo-referenced text strings, so possibly the largest specifically historical gazetteer. Nearly 1200 volunteers made 5.5 million transcriptions, including “confirmations.” This paper describes the project’s interaction with online volunteers and then presents their experience, as recorded through the online system itself, six in-depth interviews and 162 responses to an online questionnaire. We find that, unlike volunteers in physical science “citizen science” projects, they were motivated by personal interest in the maps, in places that held meaning for them, and in how places had changed. These conclusions enable us to offer suggestions for volunteer recruitment and retention in similar future projects.

摘要

GB1900项目抄录了覆盖英国的地图上几乎所有文本的比例为1：10,650，大约于1900年：260万个地理参考文本字符串，因此可能是最大的专门历史地名词典。近1200名志愿者进行了550万次抄写，包括“确认”。本文描述了该项目与在线志愿者的互动，然后介绍了他们的经验，这些经验通过在线系统本身记录，六次深度访谈和对在线问卷的162条回答。我们发现，与从事物理“公民科学”项目的志愿者不同，他们的动机是个人对地图的兴趣，对地图有意义的地方以及地方的变化。这些结论使我们能够为类似的未来项目中的志愿者招募和留任提供建议。