The Bentham Project at University College London (UCL) is calling for volunteers to assist in transcribing the vast manuscript archive of philosopher and reformer Jeremy Bentham. Dr Tim Causer, a member of the project, highlights the success of the Transcribe Bentham crowdsourcing initiative, which launched in 2010 and has already made thousands of pages available online. However, around 20,000 manuscript pages still require transcription.
Join the Effort
Dr Causer invites readers to participate in completing the project, which will contribute to the production of the authoritative edition of The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham and a searchable digital archive. Participants can explore Bentham's writings and correspondence, gaining insight into a figure of enormous historical importance.
How to Get Involved
Interested individuals can visit transcribe-bentham.ucl.ac.uk to learn more and start transcribing. The project relies on the goodwill of the crowd, similar to a recent initiative involving German love letters. Dr Causer emphasizes the pleasures of archival research and the collective effort needed to preserve historical documents.
Have an opinion on this or other topics? Email your letter to the Guardian for potential publication.
