I was unaware until recently that the Smithsonian have a ‘transcription’ sub-domain (and accompanying Twitter profile) that hosts numerous projects for using “digital volunteers” to transcribe archives from their – your, mine, our! – collections. It’s a great use of the ‘net and is a simple interface for providing searchable returns of otherwise hard-to-read handwriting (I’m guilty of that as well) such as Reuben Tam’s diaries:

Celebrate Asian Pacific Heritage Month by transcribing one of Reuben Tam’s diaries. Landscape painter and educator Reuben Tam was born in Kapaa, Hawaii in 1916. This diary, written from 1941 to 1942, documents his time living in New York studying philosophy and art history at the New School for Social Research and Columbia University. The fully digitized Reuben Tam Papers, which contain more of Tam’s diaries, are available on the Archives of American Art website.

Read more here.