Literary archives in the digital age: issues and encounters with Australian writers

ABSTRACT

In considering what constitutes the ideal born-digital literary archive and what interventions are possible, or even necessary, from a collecting institution in determining the make-up and future accessibility of these archives, this article examines, through a set of case studies, the collections and creative methodologies of four Australian writers – Peter Carey, Sonya Hartnett, Alex Miller and Ouyang Yu. The article considers how these writers have negotiated with, and managed, their creative output in the digital space, and how, as a collecting institution, State Library Victoria has responded to their respective requirements of the medium and expectations for how a major institution will deal with their digital collections. Finally, the article examines what practical technologies are necessary to provide a secure digital repository while facilitating access and the delivery of born-digital literary content to the user, both now and into the future.

KEYWORDS:

• Digital space
• born-digital
• literary archives

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Sue McKemmish, ‘Evidence of Me … ’, Archives and Manuscripts, vol. 24, no. 1, 1996, p. 42.

2. ibid.

3. Note should be made of the Australian novelist and inveterate journal writer Morris Lurie, who adhered strictly to his typewriter as a mode of composition, and to his fountain-pen to write his journals, something he considered an enduring literary art form. Lurie is an interesting counterpoint in the digital literary age because of his refusal to compose anything in digital form; see The Australian Magazine, April 2008; and obituary article, The Australian, 9 October 2014.

4. Sarah Slade [Manager, Project Office, State Library Victoria], ‘Accessible, Intuitive, Powerful, Digital’, Australian Society of Archivists, Victorian Branch Newsletter, November 2017.

5. ExLibris, ‘Upgrading to ExLibris Rosetta’, <https://www.proquest.com/documents/Upgrading-to-Ex-Libris-Rosetta.html>, accessed December 2018.

6. This approach is a standard institutional strategy as noted in the British Library’s Digital Lives Project, see Jeremy Leighton John, Digital Lives, Personal Digital Archives for the 21st Century: An Initial Synthesis, British Library, 2009, pp. x–xi, <http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/files/digital-lives-synthesis02-1.pdf>, accessed May 2019.

7. In 2018 the State Library began an internal restructure; the outcomes of this will be finalised by mid-2019.

8. Lachlan Glanville, ‘Hexed – Discoveries and Challenges in Archiving Born-digital Records’, <https://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/archives/hexed-discoveries-and-challenges-in-archiving-born-digital-records>, accessed September 2018.

9. Interview, Sarah Slade with Kevin Molloy, 15 December 2018; and Slade, ‘Accessible, intuitive, powerful digital’, <https://blogs.slv.vic.gov.au/our-stories/accessible-intuitive-powerful-digital/>, accessed November 2018.

10. Rowan Wilkin, ‘Peter Carey’s Laptop’, Cultural Studies Review, vol. 20, no. 1, 2014, pp. 100–120; Steve Meacham, ‘A Writer’s Craft is Now a Ghost on the Machine’, Sydney Morning Herald, 7 January 2012; and Rachel Buchanan, ‘Sweeping up the ashes’, Australian Book Review, no. 337, December 2011–January 2012.

11. It is interesting to note Salman Rushdie’s comment on considering his first use of the computer as a ‘sophisticated typewriter’, see Laura Carroll, Erika Farr, Peter Hornsby and Ben Ranker, ‘A Comprehensive Approach to born-Digital Archives’, Archivaria 72, Fall 2011, p. 65.

12. For example, in 2016 National and State Libraries of Australasia (NSLA) hosted a number of digital forensic workshops at SLV for practitioners in collecting institutions in Australia, taught by Christopher ‘Cal’ Lee, forensics expert on the BitCurator and Access project at the University of North Carolina, <https://sils.unc.edu/news/2016/lee-nsla>, accessed December 2018; for details on BitCurator and Access see Christopher A Lee, Kam Woods, Matthew Kirschenbaum and Alexandra Chassanoff, ‘From Bitstreams to Heritage: Putting Digital Forensics into Practice in Collecting Institutions’, BitCurator Consortium, 20 September 2013, <https://bitcuratorconsortium.org/publications-and-presentations>, accessed November 2018.

13. Reagan Moore, ‘Towards a Theory of Digital Preservation’, The International Journal of Digital Curation, vol. 3, no. 1, 2008, pp. 70–71.

14. See Carroll et al., pp. 61–92, a case study on the Salman Rushdie collection at Emory University; and Leigh Rosin, ‘Applying Theoretical Archival Principles and Policies to Actual Born Digital Collections’, Archive Journal, November 2014, <http://www.archivejournal.net/notes/applying-theoretical-archival-principles-and-policies-to-actual-born-digital-collections>, her case study on theatre company records at the National Library of New Zealand.

15. Suzanne Annand, Sally DeBauch, Erin Faulder et al., ‘Digital Processing Framework’, August 2018, <https://ecommons.cornell.edu/handle/1813/57659>, accessed September 2018.

16. Devin Becker and Collier Nogues, ‘Saving-Over, Over-Saving, and the Future Mess of Writers’ Digital Archives: A Survey Report on the Personal Digital Archiving Practices of Emerging Writers’, The American Archivist, vol. 75, no. 2, Fall/Winter 2012, p. 484.

17. Early terms for this generation included ‘digital natives’ and ‘digital immigrants’; see Mark Prensky, ‘Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants Part 1ʹ, On the Horizon, vol. 9, no. 5, Septermber/October 2001, pp. 1–6.

18. Alison Summers, pers. com., ‘File Notes’, Provenance File MS 16237, Manuscripts Collection, State Library Victoria.

19. Personal Communication, Paul Eggert, FAHA to Kevin Molloy October 2010; Email, Eggert to Kevin Molloy, 30 December 2018.

20. Carroll et al., pp. 83–84.

21. See Kevin Molloy, ‘Reflections on the Appraisal and the Valuation of Born-digital collections: Looking for Dollar Values’, NSLA Heritage Collections Forum, Queensland, Australia, May 2015, <https://www.nsla.org.au/resources/heritage-collections-forum-2015>, accessed November 2018.

22. Email, Peter Carey to John Thompson, 27 September 2012, Manuscripts Collection Provenance File, SLV, MS 14783.

23. See, for example the draft chapters of Autumn Lang, MS 13963 SLV Manuscripts Collection, Boxes 27–30.

24. Email, Alex Miller to John Thompson, 14 April 2010, Manuscripts Collection Provenance File, SLV, MS 13963.

25. John Thompson to Kevin Molloy, Valuation Report, 23 April 2007, Manuscripts Collection Provenance File, SLV, MS 13963.

26. Susan Thomas, Guidelines for Library Staff Assisting Donors to Prepare their Personal Digital Archives for Transfer to NSLA Libraries, NSLA, 2011, <https://www.nsla.org.au/index.php/resources/assisting-donors-prepare-their-digital-archives>, accessed December 2018.

27. Sonya Hartnett, ‘Backup of Redmond Barry Speech’, 09.08.2012, digital file, Manuscripts Collection, State Library Victoria, RA.2013.51, n.p.

28. For details on Yu’s literary output see his current website: <http://www.otherlandpublishing.com>. For related background, see also Dan Huang, ‘Chinese Culture Cures: Ouyang Yu’s Representation and Resolution of the Immigrant Syndrome in the Eastern Slope Chronicle’, Antipodes: A North American Journal of Australian Literature, vol. 23. no. 2, 2009, pp. 179–84.

29. Email, Ouyang Yu to Kevin Molloy, 6 April 2018. See also Amelia Dale and Ouyang Yu, interview, Cordite: Poetry Review, 1 February 2018, <http://cordite.org.au/interviews/dale-yu>, accessed April 2018.

30. Email, Ouyang Yu to Kevin Molloy, 14 March 2018.

31. For Emory University’s handling of these issues in relation to the Rushdie Collection see Carroll et al., pp. 67–68.

32. David Thomas, Simn Fowler and Valerie Johnson, The Silence of the Archive, Neal-Schuman, Chicago, 2017, pp. 57, 175.

33. Leigh Rosin, ‘Applying Theoretical Archival Principles and Policies to Actual Born-digital Collections’, Archive Journal, November 2014, <https://www.archivejournal.net/notes/applying-theoretical-archival-principles-and-policies-to-actual-born-digital-collections/>, accessed January 2019.n.p.

34. Sarah Slade [Manager Project Office, State Library Victoria], ‘Accessible, Intuitive, Powerful Digital’, 29 November 2017.

35. Consider the approach taken with the Salman Rushdie papers, Carroll et al., pp. 76–78.

36. Thomas et al., p. 57.

37. Digital anthropology, sometimes referred to as digital ethnography is a new and evolving discipline; for background see Heather A Horst and Daniel Miller (eds), Digital Anthropology, Bloomsbury, London, 2013.

38. In Australia collection valuations for purchase, or gift under the Federal Governments Tax Incentive Cultural Gift Scheme requires detailed valuations to be undertaken by registered independent valuers. This independent engagement by a third party often requires some contact with writers whose collections are being valued. Often this contact elicits valuable contextual information on the writer’s craft and creative methodologies that are crucial for understanding digital literary content.

39. Interview, Sarah Slade with Kevin Molloy, 15 December 2018.

40. Carroll et al., pp. 78–79.

41. ibid., p. 86.

42. Brian Dietz, ‘Let the Bits Describe Themselves’, <https://saaers.wordpress.com/2016/01/07/let-the-bits-describe-themselves/>, accessed May 2019; Jason Evans Groth, ‘Let the Bits Describe Themselves: Arrangement and Description of Born Digital Objects’, <https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/news/special-collections/let-the-bits-describe-themselves%3A-arrangement-and-description-of-born-digital-objects>, accessed May 2019.

43. Peter McKinney, Steve Knight, Jay Gattuso, David Pearson, Libor Coufal, David Anderson, Janet Delve, Kevin De Vorsey, Ross Spencer and Jan Hutař, ‘Reimagining the Format Model. Introducing the Work of the NSLA Digital Preservation Technical Registry’, 2014, <https://digitalpreservation.natlib.govt.nz/assets/NDHA/Publications/2014/NSLA-Format-Model-NRIN-redraft.pdf>, accessed December 2018.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kevin Molloy

Kevin Molloy is Manager of the Manuscripts Collection, State Library of Victoria in Melbourne. He completed his PhD at Trinity College Dublin and researches and writes on international Irish print networks, the Irish-American novel, and cultural memory. He is currently working on an oral history project documenting post-World War II Irish migration to Australia, 1948–1970, and has ongoing professional interests in archival theory and digital forensics.