Giving back, learning, relaxing, and having fun: personal motivations and impacts of a virtual volunteer transcription program

A wide range of cultural memory institutions have implemented crowdsourcing or virtual volunteer transcription programs to support improved accessibility, searchability, and computational use of digitized manuscript materials. While there has been some work to systematically explore what motivates virtual volunteers to participate, there have been few studies that have explored the impact participation has on volunteers. This article reports the quantitative and qualitative results of a 2021 survey of 477 volunteer participants in the Library of Congress’ By the People transcription program. Results demonstrate there are three primary factors users identify motivating their participation: learning about the past, contributing to a public good/giving back, and having fun/engaging in enjoyable experience. We show how those three motivations largely align with ways volunteering makes an impact on participants’ lives. These motivations are not distinct and, for most volunteers, they are mutually reinforcing motivations and impacts. The paper concludes by drawing out the implications of this research for efforts to engage public audiences with digital collections.