War diaries are a popular subject for research. The World War One Transcription Project ran from July 2016 to January 2019 and was focused on successfully digitising most of the WW1 soldiers’ diaries, and a portion of WW1 soldiers letters held in the Hocken Archives collection. In total, 72 diaries and other documents were digitised (around 7000 to 8000 pages).
Surrogate paper copies have been printed and bound and these are catalogued on Hākena and available for use in the Reading room at Hocken. Having high quality preservation copies available for readers substantially reduces handling damage to the originals, many of which are fragile because of age and repeated handling in the past.
The key role played by a group of volunteers from the Friends of the Hocken Collections was the work to create transcripts in MS Word of some diaries and documents. A total of 16 were completed and donated to the Hocken by the volunteers. These volunteers were: Rosemary Clarkson, Liz Crook, Kathryn Davey, Trish Fleming, Ross Grimmett, Nigel Harwood, Denise Hesson, Rosemary Hudson, Lorraine Isaacs, Dave and Lynne Keen, Phillippa Keaney, Allison McKenzie, Barry Mackenzie, Claire Stevens and Sara Barham. You can read more about their work in an Otago Daily Times article, “Hocken friends create a wartime legacy” (23 April 2017).
Guidelines for standardised transcription of hand written documents were developed with feedback from the volunteer group. The guidelines can be re-used for future transcription projects.
Completed transcriptions held at the Hocken:
| TR# | Title | Era | Preservation copy |
| TR-082 | Transcript of Jeffery, Minnie : War diaries volume 1, pp.1-156 | 1915-1916 | PC-0310 |
| TR-083 | Transcript of Jeffery, Minnie : War diaries volume 2, pp.157-225 | 1916-1917 | PC-0311 |
| TR-084 | Transcript of Weir, Daniel : Letters from World War I (Misc-MS-2148) | 1916-1918 | PC-0853 |
| TR-085 | Transcript of Jeffrey, J. G., Lieutenant : Transcripts of letters from Lieutenant J.G. Jeffrey (MS-1243/010) | 1915 | none available |
| TR-086 | Transcript of Paulin, Thomas Gerald : Diary (AG-777/01) | 1917 | PC-0714 |
| TR-087 | Transcript of Cargill, Arthur W. : Diary (Misc-MS-0636/001) | 1914-1915 | PC-0862 |
| TR-088 | Transcript of Cargill, Arthur W. : Diary (Misc-MS-0636/002) | 1915 | PC-0863 |
| TR-089 | Transcript of Jackson, James Gardner : Diary (AG-577/001) | 1914 | PC-0236 |
| TR-090 | Transcript of Jackson, James Gardner : Diary (AG-577/002) | 1915 | PC-0237 |
| TR-091 | Transcript of Paulin, Thomas Gerald : Diary (AG-777/02) | 1917-1918 | PC-0715 |
| TR-092 | Transcript of Cloughley, George : War diary of George Cloughley (MS-4395/001) | 1914-1916 | PC-876 |
| TR-093 | Transcript of Falconer, Alexander Smith : War diary (MS-0804/001) | 1914-1915 | PC-0880 |
| TR-094 | Transcript of Allen, John Hugh : World War I diary (MS-0139/B) | 1915 | PC-0318, PC-0319 |
| TR-095 | Transcript of Falconer, Alexander Smith : War diary (MS-0804/002) | 1915 | PC-0881 |
| TR-096 | Transcript of Lawless, James Henry : Diary (MS-1640/001) | 1915-1920 | PC-0859 |
| TR-097 | Transcript of Roberts, Edward Fletcher : Diary (August-November 1915) (MS-0485/019) | 1915 | PC-0893 |
The project was initiated in 2016. Related projects in other places included:
Measuring the ANZACs – The Measuring the ANZACs project brings together an international team of researchers, community connections around New Zealand’s military history from the Auckland War Memorial Museum, and the power of the Zooniverse community to explore, analyze, and digitize original World War I personnel files. It is building on work done by Archives New Zealand
Online Cenotaph – Auckland Museum
World War One Diaries – State Library of New South Wales