Volunteer to transcribe handwritten letters, diaries, and manuscripts. Make centuries of history searchable and free for everyone while earning volunteer hours.
Information provided by the Library of Congress.
What is Nexus
Nexus is a volunteer platform built with the Library of Congress. We give everyday people access to historical documents and the tools to transcribe them.
Handwritten letters, Civil War diaries, 19th-century newspapers, government records, your transcriptions make this material full-text searchable and permanently accessible for researchers, students, and the public.
Process
Sign up for free in seconds: just your name and email. No approval process, no waitlist.
Browse thousands of real Library of Congress pages. Letters, diaries, maps, newspapers, claim one to transcribe.
Transcribe text alongside original scans, or review other volunteers' contributions, and log it all as volunteer hours!
Features
View the original document scan on one side and type your transcription on the other, with zoom, pan, and image enhancement tools built in.
Every transcription feeds directly into the Library of Congress's collection. Your hours come bundled into a signed PDF record you can hand to a school for community service requirements, attach to scholarship applications, or list on your resume.
Track every page you've transcribed. Watch your lifetime count grow and see how your work has been used by researchers.
More volunteer opportunities coming soon
Transcription is just the beginning. Nexus will expand to cataloguing, tagging, translation, and a hub for all non-profit opportunities soon.
Join the effort
Thousands of historical pages are waiting to be transcribed.