Today we had a meeting that focused mostly on the errors that have been found in our transcriptions. We were told that we are not expected to go back and redo our previous transcriptions. Instead, the purpose is for us to look at the corrections, learn from our mistakes, and use what we learn going forward. I will admit that it was a little disheartening to see how many errors were found in some of the transcriptions I had worked on.

Today was the beginning of week three, and it felt good to get back into the routine after the long weekend. I finished two new transcriptions today and was able to get some more practice with the process.

Today was a short day and my last day working on fixing the formatting of the transcriptions I had completed. My main goal was to finish everything up so I could head into the long holiday weekend knowing that my work was done.

Today was a good learning day. We had our weekly meeting and spent some time going over what is expected when it comes to doing transcriptions correctly.

Today was mostly spent working on the formatting of finished transcriptions. I spent almost two hours going through the documents and fixing anything that needed to be adjusted.

Today was a pretty productive day. I completed my third document and even got started on a fourth before calling it a day. It felt good to see the work I've been putting in start to add up and to make steady progress on my assignments.

Today I continued working on transcriptions and putting the research I did on nineteenth-century handwriting into practice. After spending time studying examples of cursive from the 1800s, I found myself recognizing more patterns in the manuscripts. The letter combinations that seemed confusing earlier in the week were becoming easier to identify, and I felt more confident working through difficult sections of text.

The day was less about transcribing and more about learning how to read the past. Since many of the manuscripts in the Lincolniana Collection are handwritten, I spent time researching nineteenth-century cursive handwriting and studying examples of historical scripts. The more examples I looked at, the more I began to recognize patterns that initially seemed confusing.

Today was my first real day working with the Lincolniana Original Manuscripts Collection, and honestly, it felt a little like stepping into a new world. I opened the FULL MANUSCRIPTS INVENTORY Excel file and started with the odd-numbered items, just like I was instructed. There’s something strangely comforting about having a clear starting point when the collection is as big as this 500 manuscripts waiting to be explored.