Methods

How the team turns manuscript photographs into a checked diplomatic text. The same steps run for every collection; each project keeps its own rules file, sign key and project log. Nothing here is AI-only: every spot without consensus goes to a human, and the whole text is read through against the images by human readers.

The two standing principles

Diplomatic text. The transcription records what is on the leaf — struck text, insertions, underlining, spelling — not a corrected or modernised version.

Arithmetic may choose, never supply. Where a figure is unclear, a calculation may choose between readings the ink allows; it never produces a reading the ink does not support (Parrish rules T16/T17).

The process, step by step

Every collection goes through the same steps, in this order, box by box. Rotation is checked first: nothing is read until every image is the right way up. Each collection's page shows where each step stands.

Readers and engines

Any engine can be the primary (base text), secondary (supplemental model) or adjudicator; the roles are set per archive in the viewer's Engines tab and the comparison scripts take any assignment. Current engines: Claude Opus (primary in all three archives), Claude Sonnet (mechanical steps), ChatGPT/Codex and Gemini (supplemental models), Transkribus (HTR, exports only). The exact model, settings and dates of every reader are recorded in each project log.

What the readers' tests found

Numbers are checkable: where a leaf carries a calculation, arithmetic can settle a doubtful figure that readers cannot (Parrish: 173 settled readings; 390 of Dodgson's own slips found).
Agreement is not accuracy: readers agreed on wrong readings (a famous line, a stock phrase); shared errors are only found by human audit of agreed text.
Offering readings biases a reader: independent re-reads see only the image; candidates are sealed and unlabelled.
Everyone is fallible, including the PI: rulings are logged with their evidence and can be revisited.

Rules per project

Each archive works under its own written rules, kept in its Box folder and dated: the Ada Lovelace Edition's process rules (the origin of the method, 2026-07/08), the Mary Somerville Papers' working rules (v14, 3 Nov 2026, §2a–§2m), the Parrish archive's rules (T1–T17) and the cross-project working rules. Where rules differ, the newer PI ruling wins. Names, facts and collaborators are never carried from one project to another.

Where things live

Photographs, transcriptions, manifests and answers stay in the project's Box folder. This website holds only the viewer. Each archive has a IIIF Presentation 3 manifest (one canvas per leaf, images pointing at the Box working copies, one annotation page per leaf for the lines and spots) so the data can later be served by any IIIF viewer without rebuilding it.

Sources: ALE READ ME and generalized process rules; MSP Working Rules v14; cross-project working rules (3 Nov 2026); Parrish Leaves Workbench v21 (Process, Rules, Verification tabs); Collatorium feature list v2 (4 Nov 2026).