New York Public Library

The New York Public Library (NYPL) already has committed significant resources to scanning 10,000 items from its historical menu collection. This collection is an unmatched resource for historians and other scholars, as well as writers, designers, and food enthusiasts. However, the line-by-line transcription that would make these digitized menus fully searchable would be prohibitively expensive. As an alternative, NYPL will crowdsource the project by working with leading game designers to build an online tool that encourages the general public to perform menu transcriptions as part of an engaging and competitive activity. Through the collective efforts of many participants, users will help build what will gradually become a culinary research database of extraordinary power.