The group will explore and undertake projects geared toward developing events, resources, and tools for archivists, scholars, and authors working with and/or creating literary papers. Possible projects might include:
Symposium: An initial symposium, “Beyond the Text: Literary Archives in the 21st Century,” was held at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library on April 26th and 27th, 2013.
Research: The group will foster, support, and/or undertake research projects, at the local and consortial levels, designed to understand the needs of creators and users and to further archivists’ engagement with literary papers. GLAM(NA) recently completed a Literary Archives User Study.
Publications: The group intends to develop a series of pamphlets designed to help those who create, manage, and use literary papers. Topics might include:
- Understanding and using literary papers
- Using non-literary papers (ie. legal and financial records) to support literary scholarship
- Privacy issues in literary papers
- Copyright
- Paleography, or Deciphering and reading handwriting
- Guidelines for creating, managing, and using electronic records
Workshops: The group might develop workshops for archivists and scholars designed to advance understanding and work with literary papers. An introductory workshop would aim to help archivists and users develop a core set of skills for interpreting literary archives and manuscripts.
Group for Literary Archives and Manuscripts (North America) 