About Smithsonian

The Smithsonian Institution is the world's largest museum and research complex, with 19 museums, 9 research centers, and affiliates around the world.

The challenge

Make the Smithsonian Institution's digitization of 137 million+ artifacts more findable, useful and informative to researchers and members of the public

In just six months, a team of Fellows developed and launched an end-to-end solution for creating digital records for historic files. Through crowdsourcing transcriptions, the project has engaged thousands of volunteers who have helped to transcribe and review historic and scientific records, making them easily accessible to the public for the first time.