Digitally unveiling the history of reparative justice

In March 2024, the Wording Repair project in collaboration with the Utrecht Center for Digital Humanities organized a Workshop/Lecture on Handwritten Charachter Recognition open to the interested public. The workshop was delivered by dr. Lorena De Vita and dr. Laura Fahnenbruck with an introduction by dr. Pim Huijnen, and it was held in hybrid mode at the Digital Humanities Workspace at Utrecht University (Netherlands).

The full program – which you can find here – ran from 13.00 to 16.00, as the lecture was followed by a training open to anyone interested.

After the lecture, drs. Arja Firet and drs. Coen van der Stappen of the DH team at Utrecht University Library carried out the Transkribus training. They demonstrated the application of the Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) software of the Transkribus platform on printed collections and handwritten materials. After this demonstration, participants engaged in a hands-on session, either working with provided example texts or their research materials, such as photos or scans of archival data. No prior knowledge of HTR was required to participate and the session was open to all!

About Transkribus

Thanks to continuous improvements in artificial intelligence, computers can now achieve near-perfect reading accuracy for both printed and handwritten texts using advanced Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. These techniques enable the transformation of archives, books, and various texts into machine-readable data, enabling full-text searchability. Transkribus is a comprehensive tool for the digitization, AI-powered text recognition, transcription and searching of historical documents, accessible from any place, any time, and in any language.

For more information about the courses and workshops organised by the Center for Digital Humanities you can click here.