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At the Technical University of Valencia they are working

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in a computer with the ability to convert ancient manuscripts

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into digital books.

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There are millions of these manuscripts which are waiting to be transcribed

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but, so far, it could only be done manually and it was very costly.

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And, be warned! that some of these manuscripts might contain

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information as valuable as the location of treasure laden sunken galleons.

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The middle age monks, such as those in the film "The Name of the Rose",

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would said that this is Devil's Work, but the persons working in this project

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are researchers from the Polytechnic University of Valencia.

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They scan ancient books like this one,

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but since they are hand written, so far,

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computers can not recognize the books, considering them just as a drawings.

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Now these Valencian computer scientists

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are training the computers to transcribe ancients texts.

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And, most interestingly, like they were intelligent beings,

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as errors are being corrected, over the screen, they learn and correct the errors.

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The interaction allows, on the one hand,

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to make the transcription process more ergonomic 

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and more friendly to the transcriber and,

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on the other hand, to save human effort.

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Today, the transcription of these books is extremely expensive.

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It is carried out by specialists on paleography 

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and it can take more than one month to transcribe one of these manuscripts.

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On The Valencian Community, there are tens of thousands of manuscript books,

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and all over Spain there are millions,

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and to transcribe them is a hard task;

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at least half an hour per page.

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In one year, this system could start being used

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in specialized centers as The Valencian Library.

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With such an application, the transcription will be done automatically or simultaneously,

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and the process of book cataloging would be very much faster.

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And this project is not only interesting for researchers and librarians,

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the very treasure hunters are interested in this computer tool,

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because it is calculated that, only into the Spanish Indian Archives,

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there is information about the locations of around 500 galleon wrecks,

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filled with treasures.