Digitization “radically increases access," Jay Satterfield, Head of Special Collections at Rauner Library 

Jay also shares some lesser-recognized benefits. For instance, “digitization creates a new context for that document…When you pluck out a diary and digitize it, you set it into a new context. And sometimes, that can create new meaning and new understanding. It also runs the risk of creating misunderstanding and confusion because it’s taken from the original context.” 

Transcribing Lorne’s diarized words into FromThePage has become a powerful learning tool in Ross Virginia’s Environmental Issues of the Earth's Cold Regions class. For Ross, “history isn’t separate from science,” and “understanding the past is a way to consider the future of the Arctic.” 

“A diary is arguably the most intimate form of a person,” says Annabel, a student from Ross’s class. She described the experience as enriching and confronting. In the entries Annabel encountered, she found what she calls “rare admissions of guilt” in Lorne’s detailed abuse of Ada Blackjack, the lone human survivor of the 1923 Wrangel Island rescue mission. Annabel shared that it was “oddly chilling and incredibly saddening to read his justification for his vile acts.” These feelings affirmed the importance of her contribution to this project. “All too often, it can be easy to brush off a diary as an unimportant perspective.” Instead, as Annabel describes, we’re forced to remove the rose-tinted glasses to see history differently thanks to this work.

Transcribing diaries like Lorne’s can “create an empathetic response from the reader in 2024 to Lorne in 1921,” says Jay. He cautions, though, "We feel like we're in his head, but we’re not. We can use that feeling, though, as the trigger moment to start asking good questions to understand the context and the writer better.”

Benjamin was responsible for a different diary excerpt from Annabel. Reading cursive made the initial process slow-going, but then Benjamin found his rhythm. "Transcribing was a fascinating and enriching experience" and gave Benjamin a better understanding of the expedition and the people's lives on that journey.

"Most education is about mastery; a professor teaches, and the student can then write or test well about that subject. That approach is less about creating new knowledge and instead is a repackaging to show that the student understands. But Ross's class is a chance to interpret primary resources afresh - some that have never been looked at - and in that way, create new knowledge to show a different form of mastery," says Jay.

Benjamin expanded on his transcription experience by stating that he felt he "contributed to a greater cause throughout this process, hopefully helping those unable to physically interact with the materials conduct research in the future."

Sydney shared a similar sentiment. “I close-read each word in the text carefully and slowly, more so than I would probably do if I were not transcribing—but just reading—a delicate physical document. I appreciated how FromThePage synthesizes information across diary entry transcriptions and analyzes the connections between recurring people and places. I imagine this digital word map will benefit researchers interested in piecing together the socio-ecological system and the main movers and shakers of polar exploration from 1900-30.”

Additionally, these students’ transcription and indexing work will become a permanent part of “Collating Wrangel Island,” the Libraries’ digital collection of expedition papers and documents. The Libraries’ process of encoding the transcription and metadata means the students have their names (and labor) permanently attached to the diary’s digital publication.