@graemeandrew great questions again! The tag function was added just before our developer left, and we thought it was better to have something than hold it back until we have someone in post to finish it perfectly (as these things can sometimes take longer than you'd think). What does the pop-up message say?

The short answer is, we'll be able to sort through the duplicate tags later, so it's still worth adding them.

'Not a playbill' is for blank sheets or the occasional other sheet that's been digitised as part of the volume. If there's not a 'not a performance' option then we should add it! After talking to scholars about it, we haven't worried too much if performances that aren't strictly plays are included, as we'll probably do a quick classification task at some point to sort them out.

    That clears it up perfectly, thanks @mia

    Attached should be the error message. To reproduce:
    - type 'elephant' into the tag field
    - scroll down to one of the entries for elephant that appear in the drop-down tag list and press Enter
    - the tag field now shows two elephant tags (highlighted in green)
    - delete the first of the two tags (if you delete the second tag the error does not appear, but a duplicate tag is still created)

    • 23kB

    error.jpeg

      Hopefully this is a rarity but what's the best way to deal with marking a title that is split across two pages? I was faced with this situation for 'Harlequin and the Royal Ram; or the Brazen Dragon' on one of the Old Vic playbills: http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100022589022.0x000002#?cv=79

      In this instance I marked both sections to ensure they can be transcribed but wasn't sure if this was the best approach.

        Frisby gosh, that's an unlikely situation! I haven't seen one like that before (not that I've seen everything, obviously!).

        With your solution the text will be searchable, which is the main thing. I can see that a split title would baffle someone looking to match titles to known works (like @beeashlell 's work) but that can't be helped.

          22 days later

          Marking titles: I am seeing a few of these where the bill covers different performances on different nights. The guide says to ignore future performances, so should we just mark the first one, here Rob Roy, and not mark Guy Mannering? This is clear when future shows are relegated to a note at the bottom of the bill, but here they are of equal weight. Does the recording of dates allow for only one date per bill? Thanks in advance.

          http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100022589022.0x000002#?cv=349

            • mia

            • Post #16

            Hi @johnjo - thanks for asking! I suppose it's the exceptions that make it interesting, but they can also be awkward to deal with!

            The original tasks assumed that recording one date per playbill would allow for a reasonable representation of upcoming performances, so for now we'd best stick to that and just record the next upcoming date's performances. Does that sound reasonable?

            If there's a lot of playbills like this we could set up a special 'weekly listings' task or find some other way of dealing with their more complex requirements.

              I have just been recording the immediate upcoming date, and usually there isn't a problem. I will stick to that, even if another night is featured equally on the same bill with a different programme. I've only seen this on the Royal Vic/Coburg bills.
              I didn't make a note, but there was one bill where the main play (P1) is on all week, followed by P2 on Mon and Sat, P3 on Tues, P4 on Wed and Fri, and P5 on Thurs, ie, the same starting play every night, but with another four to follow during the week, either once or twice. My head hurts thinking about it! I just left that one and went on to the next.

              • mia likes this.
              11 days later

              • mia

              • Post #19

              It looks like the login function is broken - we're working on a solution, but in the meantime please do contribute without signing in.

                20 days later

                • mia

                • Post #20

                We're compiling a list of issues to sort out - if you've had trouble logging in, or had volumes that you haven't completed give you the 'hoorah' confetti message, or anything else we haven't spotted, please let us know here or on twitter @Libcrowds!

                  mia Haven't had any problems accessing the site. Occasionally while working, the next bill doesn't appear, but a refresh sorts that out. Once when a page was open for a little while (it's easy to get distracted with googling to find out more), it wouldn't save, and a "Request failed with status code 403" appeared, perhaps timed out.
                  I was surprised that all volumes at one point were complete for me, though I knew I hadn't done any work on many of them.

                  It would be nice if the move function could be controlled via mouse/touchpad rather than the arrows buttons, like the zoom. Generally everything functions very well, except tags, but that topic has been discussed above.

                      Sadly I get the confetti when I try to access any of the new miscellaneous London volumes. Having already sneaked a peek at the volumes I know there are some really interesting entries (such as 'Kinge Richard Ye Third'). I'm looking forward to making notes on those.

                        In haste but sincerely - thanks to you both!

                          12 days later
                          11 days later

                          We might have an estimate on when fixes can be put in place in the second week of January.

                          2 months later

                          Hoorays and confetti for several weeks now whenever I go through all the available files. Although I miss contributing, I guess I will have to be patient until more bills are released.

                            7 days later

                            • mia

                            • Post #27

                            @johnjo we're a little closer to a quote from some developers about fixing things, but it's frustratingly slow

                            a year later

                            Susan C asked if you should transcribe words in capitals when that's how they appear in the original - You don't need to type in caps, even if the title is in caps. We tend to use 'title case', in which major words are capitalised but minor ones (the, a, of, and, etc) are not.

                              4 months later

                              A contributor asked, when the playbill says '"a new Melo-Dramatic Play" - do you want melodrama or play?' - I'd type it as it's written, 'melo-dramatic play'.

                              That's partly because the status of plays changed over time, so it's useful to note when the phrase is used, and partly because typing the text as shown is the easiest way to ensure consistency. Researchers using the data can then make their own choices about how to interpret the text given.