{"id":1780,"date":"2018-01-29T16:57:42","date_gmt":"2018-01-30T00:57:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/?p=1780"},"modified":"2018-01-29T16:57:42","modified_gmt":"2018-01-30T00:57:42","slug":"correcting-texts-for-the-cdnc-california-digital-newspaper-collection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/2018\/01\/29\/correcting-texts-for-the-cdnc-california-digital-newspaper-collection\/","title":{"rendered":"Correcting Texts for the CDNC – California Digital Newspaper Collection"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tIntroduction <\/strong>
\nI’ve been correcting the texts in the newspaper articles on the CDNC for almost 4 years, I am now 12th in the Text Correctors Hall of Fame on CDNC with over 160,000 lines of text corrected. During that time, I’ve come up with some techniques I’d like to share. There are no real guidelines on how to correct these texts that I’ve seen, much of it is common sense but I have decided to write down my methods and share them. By correcting texts, I mean I (and others) are retyping in and correcting searchable texts for the online scans of old California newspapers.<\/p>\n

How CDNC works:<\/strong>
\nThe CDNC is based on an online software system called VERIDIAN that we will work with here. It is hosted by UC Riverside. Like any software system, it has its quirks but we work with it to get the best corrections we can.<\/p>\n

The CDNC ABOUT page is here, <\/a> read this first, good background info!
\nYou can find the collection here.<\/a>
\nYou can create an account here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Note: Sometimes in old newspapers you will read items that are, by today’s standards, racist or that disparage some group of people. In some cases the journalistic style is raw or brutal. I simply grit my teeth and get on with the correcting.
\nI don’t believe we should change or remove these texts, you should leave the offensive word or article as is. This is the value of historic texts, it shows us things that were common 100 years ago but are uncommon today. If you remove them from the text, those words still exist in the scanned images.<\/em><\/p>\n

For this tutorial, let’s work on a column of advertisements from the last page of the Healdsburg Enterprise, February 21, 1878<\/em>. This is simply an example of what I was working on this evening<\/a> (January 21, 2018).<\/p>\n

To start correcting<\/strong>, you need to have an account and log in. Creating one is simple and costs nothing. You can then select the random issue presented to you at login or you can search for a specific issue and jump in. I’m currently working on the HEALDSBURG ENTERPRISE from 1878. It’s a local paper and the time period interests me.<\/p>\n

Once you select an issue, the system presents you with an image of a page of a newspaper on the right and on the left a smaller column with two tabs, ISSUE <\/strong>and ARTICLE<\/strong>. Let’s call that smaller box on the left side the CORRECTING BOX<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Veridian Article Mode \u2013 corrected texts \u2013 Click to enlarge.<\/p><\/div>\n

If the ARTICLE tab<\/strong> is selected in the CORRECTING BOX, you will see lines of text and on the right in the scanned image<\/strong> you will see a highlighted section of the newspaper.<\/p>\n

If ISSUE tab<\/strong> is selected, you will see a column of headers that correspond to the columns on the newspaper image. Selecting one of the headers will also highlight a column on the right and trigger a switch to the ARTICLE <\/strong>tab. (See How to Correct the ISSUE headings below.)<\/p>\n

The texts we correct are used by search engines and the system (Veridian) to find items in the old papers. Events, names, and other key data are important for searching and careful correcting is important.<\/p>\n

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Details – Correcting Box<\/p><\/div>\n

To begin, select CORRECT THIS TEXT<\/strong> from the CORRECTING BOX in the ARTICLE tab.<\/p>\n

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Before correcting<\/p><\/div>\n

There are now four buttons at the top of the correcting box:
\nSAVE<\/strong> will be grayed out until you make a correction to something in the correcting box.
\nSAVE&EXIT<\/strong> is also gray until you make a correction, this will save and take you back out of correcting mode.
\nCANCEL<\/strong> discard your changes
\nNEXT<\/strong> is always available – it will take you to the next column available for correction. <\/p>\n

The RED BOX<\/strong> on the left in the correcting box is where you type corrections. The RED BOX <\/strong>on the right is where you are on the original page. In this case the red box on the right side does not highlight all the text on the line on the left, so we simply add in the missing text in the CORRECTING BOX.<\/p>\n

Graphics<\/strong>:
\nYou can see in the above image, there are also some graphics<\/strong> embedded in the original text (the right pointing finger for example) that are transcribed as random characters, in this case ‘&T’. When corrected, we will delete them.<\/p>\n

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Complete text corrected.<\/p><\/div>\n

The image above is a corrected version of this advertisement. I’ve added in the texts omitted by the software and corrected mis-transcribed texts.<\/p>\n

On line 5, the software pushed ‘HAIRPRODUC’ into one word, correcting it to ‘HAIR PRODUCER’ makes the line complete. On line 21, you can see the ‘&T’ is deleted and the line begins with the text immediately after the right pointing finger.<\/p>\n

Fractions<\/strong>.
\nIn the case of Mrs. Moore’s address, 1008\u00bd<\/strong> Market Street, the scanner can’t easily do fractions, so I enter the ASCII code for \u00bd by typing in ALT-171<\/strong>. Most ASCII codes are easily looked up and VERIDIAN seems to handle most of them well.<\/p>\n

FONTS<\/strong> are not important in correcting. Fancy fonts sometimes trips up the software and your ability to transcribe them is much better than any machine. Simply stick to spelling and capitalization and ignore the rest.<\/p>\n

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Small CAPS – Bank of Healdsburg<\/p><\/div>\n

Small CAPS<\/strong> – In cases where SMALL CAPS are used, (“Bank of Healdsburg” above) I use normal capitalization (upper and lower case) in the corrected text.<\/p>\n

Numbers <\/strong>should be reviewed carefully, often you will see $IOO for one hundred that should be $100, capital I for 1 and capital letter O for zero. Your browser settings and that font you use will make this easy to see or easy to miss. In my case, I use the CHROME browser for correcting as it allows some automated spell checking on the highlighted texts and points out incorrect numbers in a consistent way.<\/p>\n

Depending on the font and page condition, the scanner and OCR system can transpose letters<\/strong>. It has a hard time distinguishing ‘b’<\/strong> from ‘h’<\/strong>, ‘e’<\/strong> and ‘r’<\/strong>, ‘3’<\/strong> and ‘8’<\/strong>, for example. More modern papers have fewer issues than the older ones with the serif fonts and poor quality. I’ve gone back to reread my corrections many times only to find ‘he’ instead of ‘be’ or ‘.l’ vs ‘J’, and ‘I’ vs ‘i’. You will find these through-out the texts and you should scan for them as you work.<\/p>\n

Navigation<\/strong>.
\nI also use the mouse <\/strong>very little once I’m in correcting mode, I’ve trained myself to use TAB <\/strong>to move down a line, and SHIFT+TAB <\/strong>to move up a line. In VERIDIAN you work one line at a time.
\nUse Control+LEFT or RIGHT ARROW<\/strong> to move a word right or left.
\nYou can use Control+SHIFT+LEFT or RIGHT ARROW<\/strong>, you can highlight words for easy replacement or copying.
\nEND <\/strong>and HOME <\/strong>will take you to the end of the line and SHIFT+HOME <\/strong>or SHIFT+END <\/strong>and will select to the end of a line.
\nControl+A <\/strong>will select all the text in the line.
\nControl+Z<\/strong> will undo your commands.
\nI don’t use a MAC so can’t tell you what to do on that keyboard.<\/p>\n

Running Out of Room<\/strong> – One problem is when the correcting box editor runs out of lines and the article has more text to enter.<\/p>\n

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One line left for entry and more text at right.<\/p><\/div>\n

In this case, I continue to type the texts from the image into the last line, basically adding on until done. In this example, you can’t see all of the text in the last line in the CORRECTING BOX. It is: <\/p>\n