How can we improve the
preservation and access to born-digital records in literary and publishers’
archives?
“there lie in his
hoards many records that few now can read, even of the lore-masters, for their
scripts and tongues have become dark to later men.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
While we still have letters, manuscripts and
other physical documents from the past centuries, we are in danger of losing
digital documents created in the last decade. Literary scholars rely on the
traces left by writers – from correspondence to drafts – which now take the
form of born-digital records. Publishing historians also need access to the
records left by publishing companies. Emails and other digital forms of
communication have largely replaced letters and memos, and yet, safeguarding
digital archives remains an enduring challenge for archivists. Electronic
records risk becoming unreadable due to rapidly changing formats and technologies.
Even when digital archives are actively pres…
