The Washington University Libraries were awarded a two-year grant by the Mellon Foundation to support an exploration of essential questions surrounding the acquisition, discoverability, preservation, and use of born-digital poetry collections. The $250,000 award will enable the University Libraries to develop online resources and systems to process, preserve, and steward the collections of a new generation of digital-native poets. Leading the project will be Nadia Ghasedi, associate university librarian for Special Collections, Preservation, and Digital Strategies, Joy Novak, head of Special Collections, Joel Minor, curator of the Modern Literature Collection, and Kelli West, digital preservation specialist.
The project, Born-Digital Poetry: Planning for the Future of Literary Archives, will be centered in the University Libraries Modern Literature Collection, which was launched in 1964 as an archive for contemporary English and American poets and has currently grown to include materials of more than 175 authors, among them James Merrill, May Swenson, and Mary Jo Bang.
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Professor Mary Jo Bang. Photo by Matt Valentine
Whether generated as Microsoft Word documents or other computer-mediated formats, all born-digital items are created in a digital format and utilize computation and digital technologies at every stage of the creative process. Born-digital items are distinct from analog items that can undergo digitization, such as paper-based manuscripts and archives.
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The first of its kind to focus on issues of acquisition, preservation, and wider access to born-digital materials, the project will process a wide range of digital materials from the archive of poet and academic Mary Jo Bang. Consequently, the project will eventually make it possible for students and researchers to access born-digital collections and gain a better understanding and insight into the unprecedented ways in which poetry is created in a digital era. The project also aims to lay the foundation for new benchmarks and guidelines on preservation and access to born-digital archives at libraries and museums and for personal poetry archives.
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area.
He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.
