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Transcribing History FromThePage at the Rauner Special Collections Library

  • Stefansson Wrangel

Transcribing E. Lorne Knight's diarized words from the Stefansson Collection into FromThePage has become a powerful learning tool in Ross Virginia's Environmental Issues of the Earth's Cold Regions class.

Using Lorne's diary as a focal point, Ross and partners from the library staff have co-designed a unique learning experience demonstrating the complicated nature of the Wrangel Island narrative. "You can untangle threads through various lenses, such as gender, indigenous experiences, the environment, medical history, etc. There is a fascinating layer of historiography in the diary, too, because parts of Lorne's diary were [blacked out], maybe in an effort to "shape" the narrative," says Elizabeth Shand, Digital Collections Librarian in DxDL. These threads students can pull have the potential to "empower them to find their own avenue into research, making their research project stronger."

By transcribing a diary on FromThePage that very few people have yet read, the 41 students in Ross's class are ensuring a unique piece of history becomes an accessible fixture in the body of knowledge covering the Arctic and Arctic exploration.  Read the entire article here.