Professional paper
https://doi.org/10.58565/vda.6.1.3
Citizen science in the context of archival studies and Glagolitism: perspectives of crowdsourcing
Marija Kero
; The State Archives in Zadar, Zadar, Croatia
*
* Corresponding author.
Abstract
The paper explores the potential of citizen science in the context of the research, preservation, and popularisation of Glagolitic heritage through mass support campaigns carried out at the Center for Glagolitic Research of the University of Zadar, as part of the project Civil Science in the Field of Glagolitics: From Crowdsourcing to Knowledge. Numerous archival codices and documents are written in Glagolitic, and in addition to having invaluable national significance, their content is an important source for the study of local history and the life of the population at the time. Due to the complexity of the script itself, such manuscripts represent a challenge in processing archival material, making the identification of the contents of Glagolitic codices and documents complicated. A case study conducted within the project Civil Science in the Field of Glagolitics: From Crowdsourcing to Knowledge demonstrated that citizen science, through the use of mass support methods (crowdsourcing), can significantly contribute to the preservation and valorisation of Glagolitic heritage. By involving volunteers in the transliteration of manuscripts, new forms of collaboration are created between the professional and wider community, while the corpora of transliterated words collected can serve as a basis for the development of HTR (Handwritten Text Recognition) models and other digital tools. Although the results indicate the success of this approach, certain challenges were also observed, such as limited public participation and insufficient valorisation of results by the archival community. A crucial prerequisite for the long-term sustainability of citizen science projects in archives is the establishment of appropriate infrastructure, i.e., a system for the storage, management, and integration of transliterations into digital databases. Through the synergy of citizen science and archival expertise, new working models are created that enable more efficient processing, digitisation, and accessibility of Glagolitic manuscripts. Such an approach contributes not only to the preservation of Glagolitic heritage, but also to the development of interdisciplinary research and to raising awareness of the importance of protecting Croatian cultural and linguistic tradition.
Keywords
civil science; crowdsourcing; transliteration; Glagolitic manuscripts; archival science; cultural heritage
Hrčak ID:
343677
URI
Publication date:
30.1.2026.
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