ABSTRACT
The National Library of Wales (NLW) is based in Aberystwyth, on the west coast of Wales. This chapter discusses three crowdsourcing projects at NLW: the Cymru1900Wales place name gathering project; The Welsh Experience of the First World War collecting project; and the potential for transcribing Welsh Wills Online. In 2011, the Library established a Research Programme in Digital Collections to develop an understanding of the use, value and impact of the digital collections of Wales for research, education and public engagement purposes. Crowdsourcing uses social engagement methods to help achieve a focused, shared and large goal that would not be achievable without a collective approach. It provides organisations with the ability to achieve goals that otherwise be impossible because of constraints placed on the time, finances and resources at their disposal. Practically, the emergence of crowdsourcing methods has come at an auspicious time, when libraries and other cultural heritage organisations face unprecedented budget cuts in a time of fiscal austerity.
