Blog

How McGill University Library built upon its pilot digital collection in Quartex by exploring the potential of HTR Transcription to remove barriers to accessing and understanding primary sources in its Fur Trade Collection.

Adam Matthew Digital is the first primary source publisher to utilise Artificial Intelligence to offer transformative search capabilities with Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) technology, which we will be showcasing in the third module of our Matthew’s award-winning resource Colonial America: The American Revolution. Whilst the vast selection of material covering the American Revolutionary period in this collection was sure to pique many a budding American history enthusiast’s interest, this new HTR software has catapulted our latest collection to the forefront of academic and digital curation discussion.

1775 and the American colonies were in turmoil. A young, newly-volunteered cavalry Cornet by the name of Banastre Tarleton set sail for America with Lord General Cornwallis, hoping to play a part in the rising conflict. Like many young men with modest fortunes, a debauched London lifestyle had left its mark and the army offered excellent prospects to make a name for himself.

The Munby collection was bequeathed to Trinity College on the understanding that the deed boxes in which it was held were not to be opened until 1950. Shrouded in secrecy until that date researchers and scholars must have been elated to find the remarkable diaries of Arthur Joseph Munby contained inside. Those opening the boxes also found photograph albums, poetry and an additional set of diaries written by Munby’s wife Hannah Cullwick. This extraordinary collection featured in Gender: Identity and Social Change, is enhanced with Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) technology to enable full-text searching of the manuscript material.

On September 6^th, 1620, a group of pilgrims left Plymouth aboard a ship called the Mayflower, bound for a new life in what was then the British colonies of America. Almost 400 years on from one of the most well-known events from America’s colonial beginnings, it feels fitting that, here at Adam Matthew, work on our long-running Colonial America resource has finally reached its conclusion with the publication of Module V: Growth, Trade and Development.