Tucked-away on the third floor of Lehigh’s Linderman Library are many of the university’s historical treasures—rare books, manuscripts and personal papers—that are meticulously preserved by dedicated librarians. Lehigh’s Special Collections holds thousands of volumes that are available for research.

First-year students had the opportunity to see some of those treasures first-hand as part of the library’s Transcribathon, one of the offerings in the university’s 5X10 (five programs over 10 weeks) series.

The objective was for students to transcribe authentic, handwritten letters from historical figures such as John Muir, John Quincy Adams, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Alexander Hamilton, Jack London and Marie Curie for inclusion in Lehigh’s digital archive of letters, manuscripts and ephemera, “I Remain.”

“We have a pretty amazing collection of letters by presidents, military generals, artists, writers from all times and all places,” said Annie Johnson, a Council on Library and Information Resources postdoctoral fellow who coordinated the event. “And students are going to get to…really help future scholars by making them more accessible.”

Johnson said she and her colleagues are continually trying to introduce students to Lehigh’s Special Collections early in their academic careers so that they’ll use the materials for research and classes.

“There’s nothing like looking at the real physical object,” she said, “and that’s what we hope students are going to take away from the event.”

During the Transcribathon, mild indifference quickly transformed into excitement as students were sent back in time through faded parchment stained with delicate sweeps of cursive. Student sleuths read letters out loud, squinting at the narrow penmanship and sounding out forgotten words as others in their group feverishly typed, piecing together personal stories of daily life, travel and war.

“That looks like an S,” one student contented.

“Is this just a sloppy B?” another questioned.

Before long, the brief adventure through history ended, and everyone settled back to the present with lingering enthusiasm.

“It’s the power of the documents, honestly,” Johnson said. “There is something about seeing this real thing that John Quincy Adams actually wrote with his pen. It’s just special.”

Johnson hopes the students walked away with an idea of what it means to do original research in an archive.

To see a digital version of Lehigh’s Special Collections visit I Remain at http://digital.lib.lehigh.edu/remain/

Story and video by Stephanie Veto

Photos by Christa Neu