Join us for a virtual information session about the By The People transcription project and prepare for the live stream of the Library of Congress' 2025 Douglass Day Celebration.
By the People invites you to transcribe, review, and tag digitized pages from Library of Congress collections. Everyone is welcome to take part! Volunteer-created transcriptions improve search, readability, and access to handwritten and typed documents for everyone.
All transcriptions are made and reviewed by volunteers before they are returned to loc.gov, the Library's website. You don't even need to create an account to transcribe, but registered users can review other people's transcriptions and keep track of their contributions. Learn how to get started. By the People is powered by the open source crowdsourced transcription platform Concordia, developed by the Library of Congress.
We launched By the People in Fall 2018. The name comes from the closing line of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, which states “...government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." The name reflects the spirit of democracy of this transcription program, which asks you to join us in enhancing Library of Congress digital collections.
