I have, very belatedly, been reading Caught in the Web of Words: James Murray and the Oxford English Dictionary. Not only has it passed through my hands in many incarnations during my years as a book dealer, such was my workload at Oxford that I never even got around to reading it when I was (voluntarily) attending lectures on the subject.

Perhaps I wasn’t meant to read it until now. I like the idea that people find books (or books find people) when they will gain the most from them. When I finally retrieved this poor battered copy from the dark depths of some offsite library storage facility, it seemed a random, if overdue, gesture.

This is rather incredible, considering what I’m about to dive into. The New Zealand Reading Experience Database project will call on volunteer readers to contribute quotations about reading. Not unlike the OED in fact. And as it turns out, lessons learned from crowdsourcing in the nineteenth century aren’t so very different from the twenty-first either.

A fly on the wall of Murray’s famous Scriptorium might learn that out of a multitude of volunteers, the majority of the work is done by a few. It’s near impossible to predict the rate of progress when a project relies on volunteer contribution. Expert moderation is necessary, and will probably take more time than expected. Data clean up is inevitable. Never underestimate the enthusiasm or expertise of volunteers (you might employ them one day). Without volunteers, some of the greatest projects would not be possible.

For crowdsourcing adventures and cautionary tales look no further. I had to buy a copy before I could bring myself to return it. Intrepid crowdsourcers: don’t leave home without it.