The document discusses the City Archives of Leuven, which holds over 13 km of documents from the 12th to 21st century. It focuses on the Itinera Nova project, which aims to digitize and transcribe the 1,127 registers of the Court of Alderman from 1362-1795. Over 35,000 transcriptions are now online. The project relies on over 40 volunteers aged 50-90 from the Leuven region. It also describes a pilot program to recruit prisoners from the Leuven Central Prison as volunteers to help with transcription work. Challenges include integrating the prisoners into the existing volunteer community while ensuring the work remains a hobby and can be done offline.

1. Tools, People & History
Unchained crowdsourcing
Antwerp, 30/11/2017
Marika Ceunen – City Archives of Leuven

2. Introduction: the city archives of
Leuven
• 13 km documents (12e – 21e century)
• responsable for the archives/records of the
administration and for cultural heritage
• since 2014 recognized by the flemisch
governement as “cultural archive”
• 7 full time employees
• > 60 volunteers

3. Itinera Nova and the court of a
Alderman
• Handwritten registers
• Voluntary and contentious jurisdiction
• 1.127 registers (1362-1795)
• Ca. 475.000 folia
• Latin, Middle Dutch, French

5. The volunteers of the city archive
of Leuven
• Started in 2008 : 6 people /weekly / one
afternoon / cleaning documents
• 2009: start of the Itinera Nova project : disclosure
of the registers of the court of Alderman
• 2016: start of the project Overle(u)ven: project of
the reconstruction of the city of Louvain after the
first World War
• Individual volunteers: photographer, …

6. Itinera Nova : disclosure of the
registers of the court of Alderman
How?
– images: digitization
– content: transcribing
– result: online (www.itineranova.be)

8. 1. Digitization
Scanning
Preparing the registers
for scanning
Image inspection and processing

9. 2009-2016: 1006 registers digitized

10. 2. Disclosure

11. 2. Disclosure

12. 2. Disclosure

13. Results so far
> 35.000 transcriptions online
Focus on the Middle Dutch acts from
the 15th century
– transcriptions are useful for scientific
research

14. De IN-volunteers
• Profile
– 41 active members: stable group
– Between 50 and 90
– Gender: male (26) – female (15)
- Origin: region Leuven and further
– Background: academic and none academic
• Motivation
- Work independently and at home
- Flexible with professional activity
- Building expertise

15. 5. The IN-community
Online:
www.facebook.com/stadsarchiefleuven
www.itineranova.ning.com

16. 5. The IN-community

17. 5. The IN-community
Meet-IN’s

18. 5. The IN-community

19. pilot: recruitment of prisoners as
IN volunteer

20. Prison of Leuven Centraal
300 male prisoners
longterm condemnation
open door regime
work & activities

21. challenges
- Transcribing IN acts as a hobby
- Integration of these volunteers into the existing
community
- Adaptation of the existing system of teaching
and supporting newcomers

22. Problems that had to be solved
- a hobby not a type of payed work
- working offline & data exchange
- feedback from the supervising volunteer
=> Starting in 2018