Quartex launches fully searchable transcriptions of digitized manuscript assets

Quartex, an Adam Matthew Digital SaaS platform, announced the launch of Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) Transcription, which creates automated, fully searchable transcriptions of manuscript assets with a single click.


Users of digital collections sites in Quartex can now access and explore handwritten assets further than ever before, thanks to this unique enhancement of its already ground-breaking Handwritten Text Recognition feature.

Quartex is the only digital collections platform to offer HTR Transcription which extends search beyond asset metadata and is being described as a game-changing development in the field of digital archives.

Several institutions, including the Congregational Library & Archives (CLA), worked with the Quartex product development team to provide manuscript samples with which to test HTR Transcription and were delighted with the high quality of output and the possibilities for their manuscript collections.

HTR Transcription is expected to transform research within digitized collections around the world, with potential to form the basis for transcription projects as well as to allow researchers to maximise their time and delve further into collections than ever before, broadening the scope and depth of their studies.

To find out more about HTR Transcription, please contact Martin Drewe, Head of Customer Experience (martin@amdigital.co.uk).

About Adam Matthew Digital and Quartex

Adam Matthew Digital is an award-winning publisher of primary source content with 30 years’ experience identifying and making accessible primary resource collections from leading archives and libraries around the world. The publisher is an independent company within the SAGE Group, based in the United Kingdom, and has offices around the world. As its guiding philosophy, AM Digital believes that at the heart of education is the freedom to think critically. Each year it publishes new, relevant primary source collections that span a wide variety of topics ranging from gender and sexuality, literature, art, politics, war, business, popular culture, and more. These curated collections are offered to academic institutions on a customized platform designed to maximize discoverability and drive usage of primary source content to enhance learning.

AM Digital’s experience of curating and showcasing archival collections has informed the development of the technology underlying all the collections released, which ensures that customers can effectively discover, access, and explore the content published. This technology is made available, as Quartex, to libraries, archives, and other heritage institutions, to facilitate digital open access publishing. Quartex is a hosted solution developed by a dedicated and skilled team of engineers. It is designed to support a broad range of repositories’ needs, including academic libraries, public libraries, and historical societies. It benefits from a continual program of investment and development, as new functionality is added to support the requirements of both customers and the AM Digital publishing schedule.