2026 Saskatchewan Libraries Conference: Libraries Open Doors

Gladys Arnold, a teacher turned journalist, worked for the Regina Leader-Post before travelling to Europe in 1935. After working as a freelance journalist for the Canadian Press, she became their Paris correspondent, ultimately serving as the sole Canadian correspondent in France during the start of the Second World War. Her correspondence and memoirs, now preserved at the University of Regina’s Dr. John Archer Library & Archives, offer a vivid picture of a time of great historical significance.

Yet, for all this primary source material, the door is not fully open. While these materials have been digitized, they have not been made publicly available due to the lack of transcription and metadata. Making Arnold’s work more discoverable is essential to ensuring that her voice can be heard, and that these first-person accounts can be studied and shared. While open source machine learning tools can generate preliminary transcripts, human review is essential to correct errors and omissions, and the volume of material makes in-house review impractical. 

To address this challenge, we explored Zooniverse, a collaborative platform supported by the University of Oxford, University of Minnesota, and Adler Planetarium. With nearly 3 million volunteers worldwide, Zooniverse enables community volunteers to transcribe text, tag images, and classify content.  For the Gladys Arnold Collection, the platform presents an opportunity not only to transcribe many of Gladys Arnold’s letters, but also to engage with a broad community and raise awareness of this significant Saskatchewan resource.