Colorado students, including those in some rural areas, now have access to 10 million digital artifacts from the Library of Congress.
Items available to students for the first time include the original Alexander Graham Bell drawings of the telephone, drafts of the Declaration of Independence and a telegram to Abraham Lincoln from Colorado Gov. John Evans announcing the discovery of gold here.
“These are incredible treasures that are teaching treasures as well,” said Peggy O’Neill- Jones, a Metro State College professor who is director of the “An Adventure of the American Mind” program in Colorado.
Metro State is one of 10 colleges and universities nationwide charged with instructing teachers on how to use the digitized Library of Congress.
“We show teachers how to access the site because the good and bad news is there’s 10 million documents to navigate,” O’Neill-Jones says of the school’s program, paid for with $2 million from the federal government. “These original artifacts allow the kids to draw their own conclusions.”
About 100 teachers and librarians have completed the training from several school districts, including Adams 27J-Brighton, Archdiocese of Denver, Cherry Creek, Denver Public Schools, Douglas County, Jefferson County, Mesa County Valley School District and Sheridan.
“I used to take two or three class periods trying to get the kids to draw a map of the United States before Lewis and Clark so they knew what it looked like before (the Louisiana Purchase), and now there it is, digitized in the Library of Congress,” said Brian VanVoorhes, a U.S. history teacher at Bell Middle School in Golden.
In a cash-strapped district like Sheridan, hands-on access to the Library of Congress is an invaluable resource, says Sheridan High School teacher Jeff Mayer.
Mayer uses drafts of the Declaration of Independence in his English class.
“The final draft looks so perfect with your John Hancock at the bottom. It made us realize that it was done in drafts – it was crafted.”
For a remote school district like Mesa County Valley, the Library of Congress is a boon, says Sherrie Galloway, media specialist at Mount Garfield Middle School, about halfway between Clifton and Palisade. The regional library is 14 miles away in Grand Junction.
“It’s a librarian’s wonderland,” Galloway says. “The Wright Brothers site has a letter from Wilbur Wright in which he says. ‘I have been afflicted with the belief that man can fly and I’m putting my affairs in order so I can devote my life and possibly my death to ensure it.’ Just the first paragraph gives you chills,” she says.
“There is a family tree, and you can see Orville and Wilbur’s branch didn’t grow,” Galloway says.
“They didn’t have any children, and it’s clear they devoted their life to flying rather than relationships and family, and we discuss that rather than just saying, yeah, they went to Kitty Hawk and flew for a few seconds,” Galloway says.
“You can see the sacrifice.”
Staff writer Dave Curtin can be reached at 303-820-1276 or dcurtin@denverpost.com.