West Yorkshire Archive Service has been carrying out an exciting transcription project of Anne Lister’s incredible diaries which is now entering its final stages.
The aim of our transcription project, which started in July 2019, was to create complete transcriptions of every page of Anne Lister’s diaries which will be made freely available alongside the diary images on our online catalogue.
We asked volunteers to get involved by transcribing sections of Anne’s diaries. This included translating the coded sections of the diaries as we hoped this would allow volunteers to enjoy finding new stories for themselves as part of the process. It also allows the text to be searchable for key words and topics once the translations are complete.
The coded sections (what Anne called her crypt-hand) use a letter replacement code in which individual letters are replaced by symbols. A copy of the code can be found on the Reading Anne’s Diaries page of this exhibition along with guidance on seeing the diaries on our online catalogue. The crypt-hand includes details of Anne’s life that she wanted to keep secret, including her thoughts on the people she meets, business dealings and importantly her relationships with other women. The details of her sexual relations can be explicit and volunteers are advised to be aware of this before undertaking translation work.
The plain hand text is in many cases more difficult to read than the crypt-hand due to Anne’s use of extensive abbreviations. The plain hand text includes details Anne did not feel needed to be so secret but are no less fascinating, such as details of her everyday public life as well as local and national events.
Pages of Anne’s diaries were assigned to volunteer transcribers, with each page being assigned to two volunteers. Once complete these transcripts were compared by a team of checkers to help ensure accuracy, and the final transcripts are made available on our online catalogue.
Transcriptions of all of Anne’s diaries are now available on our online catalogue. The next and final transcriptions to be completed and made available will be Anne’s fourteen travel journals. Over the course of the project we have learnt a lot about both Anne and the diaries themselves. The image below shows some key facts and figures from the project so far and the transcription of diaries SH:7/ML/E/1 to SH:7/ML/E/26/3.
The project won the Archives and Records Association, Archive Volunteer Award 2020. This award recognises outstanding work involving volunteers in an archive and records service. We are incredibly grateful for the amazing Codebreakers who worked on this project and WYAS would like to thank all of our volunteer Codebreakers, including;
Sam Bennion, Jessica Betik, S Grace Betz, Patty A Book, Catherine Britt, Alex Chapman, Helen Childers, Sophie Coston, Anthony Cowley, Emily Denis, Carly Frezza, Rachel Friars, Steph Gallaway, John Gray, Feona Hamilton, Yvonne Haugen, Neil Holmes, Kerstin Holzgraebe, Julie Honnold, Kerry Hudson, David Hughes, Kate Igoe, Sarah Jennings, Jiang JY, Jane Kendall, Carol King, Merryl King, Alison Kirchgasser, Sian Kirk, Maeve Klersfeld, Linda Kost, Chloe Mason, Nicola Matthews, Lauren Mehalik, Stefanie Meyers, Mhairi Miller, Sue Miller, Pascale Mormede, Chloe Nacci, Patricia A Nelson, Kerry Oakley, Marlene Oliveira, Julie Openshaw, Maria Gonzalvez Palacios, Jessica Payne, Johanne Pelletier, Lynn Pharaoh, Susanne Piotrowski, Allison Porch, Liane Porter, Janet Preece, Francesca Raia, Donna Raney, Erin Resso, Libby Robotham, Kirsty Roger, Annett Schmiedel, Laurie Shannon, Lynn Shouls, Dorjana Širola, Leila Straub, Christy Takeuchi, Irene Trotta, Janneke van der Weijden, Sifra Verheijden, Jan Webster, Elizabeth White, Kate Wilkinson, Kathryn Williams, Abby Wilson, Sue Wright, Colette Fleming, Laura Gibbons and the students of the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.
We would not have been able to provide these transcripts without their enthusiasm and dedication.
For more on how you can read the diaries please see the Reading Anne’s Diary page of our exhibition.
For more information on how we undertook the project please have a look at our Anne Lister Transcription Guidelines, a Sample transcribed page and the Diary page used.
Please note that this project is now closed for new volunteers.
If you would like to discuss the transcription project on social media please use #AnneListerCodeBreaker.
Other Exhibition Pages
Anne Lister – A Window into History
Anne Lister – Reading Anne’s Diaries
Catablogue 