Literary Pilgrimages to the West Country

Reclamation and Representation keynote Professor Helen Taylor (University of Exeter) will be talking at an upcoming event at Exmouth Library, exploring the rich history of Devon’s literary past from Austen to Coleridge, Salinger to Waugh. The event offers a fascinating look at literary history and literary tourism in the region.

The talk will take place on Weds 28th March in Exmouth Library.

Tickets can be booked from the library (at the very agreeable sum of a mere £2), contactable at exmouth.library@devon.gov.uk, and further information can be found on the WordQuest Devon site: http://www.auneheadarts.org.uk/site/projects/wordquest/index.html

A Publisher's Archive: Charles Pick

Publisher Charles Pick’s archive has been recently opened, offering a glimpse into his lengthy career and working relationship with big literary names including John Steinbeck, JD Salinger, John Le Carre and Roald Dahl.

The archive, donated by his son to the University of East Anglia, includes a large collection of letters, interviews and press cuttings. For more info, see the Guardian coverage and UEA pages.

Salman Rushdie talks about his archive: Live twitter stream

Search for the hash tag #digdia or follow @rogerwhitson and @briancroxall for tweets from "a digital dialogue with Salman Rushdie and Erika Farr" about Rushdie's archive at Emory University, digital practices and his memoir written using the archive.


See a list of the tweets at - Storify

Based on Baskin: young local artists and the archive

Exeter is currently hosting Based on Baskin -- an exhibition of original prints by young people aged 13-19 years from across Devon, taking their inspiration from the work of Leonard Baskin, the poetry of Ted Hughes and the collaboration of these two artists.

The young people came to view original Baskin prints which are held in the Heritage Collections Department at the University and found out about more about both the printing processes he used, and his working relationship with Ted Hughes, illustrating poetry collections such as Cappricio and Crow.

The exhibition also offers the chance to see some reproductions of a selection of Leonard Baskin’s held within the University’s archives.

The project and exhibition are a collaboration between Double Elephant Print Workshop, the University of Exeter Arts & Culture Department and University of Exeter Art Society members, supported by the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund.

If you happen to be in Exeter, do drop by -- it's well worth a look, the launch on Monday was wonderful--some beautiful original work and great ideas about how to use the archive in original and creative ways.

For more information follow this link: http://www.exeter.ac.uk/about/vision/arts/exhibitions/

The exhibition runs till the end of April and is held in Kay House, Duryard.

Can you help create an archivist's tool kit plugin for Omeka?

Interest Level in Omeka Plugin for the Data Transfer from Archivist's Toolkit

"After recently taking a look at Omeka, a thought occurred to me.  Wouldn't be great if records from the Archivist's Toolkit, AT for  short, (http://www.archiviststoolkit.org/) could be published to an  Omeka instance. This would clearly seem to have value to institutions  that use the AT for cataloging work, but don't have an accessible  public publication platform.

Original group - http://groups.google.com/group/omeka-dev/browse_thread/thread/ba85579f06d5797?hl=en&pli=1

Taking a quick look at the code needed to do this, it seems that it  would require an Omeka plugin, and an AT plugin. The Omeka plugin would handle authentication, and metadata and/or files sent to it by the AT plugin, then create the Omeka records (Collections, Items, and Files). The AT plugin on the other hand would allow users to select AT records to publish to Omeka. Ideally this can all be done with one- click. Now, I saw that there is a plugin for importing EAD finding aids already, however, this only allows transfer of one of the record types in the AT, not other relevant ones (i.e. Accessions, Assessments, and Digital Objects) which an institution may be willing to publish.

So from my point of view, there is value in doing such a project; however, there are few questions which I hope this group can help answer.

1. What would be the general interest level be in this?Are there a lot institutions that use both tools now, or could such a product drive adoption of Omeka by folks currently using the AT?

2. Would there be interest in supporting this plugin on Omeka.net? I can even imagine a plan which would host both the AT database also.

3. And most importantly, what are the options available to found development/support of this work? Is there any small grants that could be applied for, or would users be willing to pay for this
product. "

Children's literature from the archives: 'Girls and Boys in Storyland' Exhibitions

Two new exhibitions of children’s literature are taking place at Exeter Central Library and the University of Exeter in April 2012. The exhibitions are being organized by Exeter Central Library and the University's Heritage Collections to showcase highlights from their exciting archival collections of early children’s books. From Margery Meanwell (aka Goody-Two Shoes) to Matt
Merrythought (the boy who was always happy), the displays will give visitors a chance to see how boys and girls were depicted in rhymes, stories and illustrations from the nineteenth- and early-twentieth centuries. The exhibition's new blog is can be found at http://girlsandboysinstoryland.wordpress.com/

Links to Helpful Archives and Cultural Heritage Web Sites

We would just like to draw your atention to this amazing list of websites and resources from archiveinfo.com

http://www.archivesinfo.com/assistance.php

New Resource: Paper Through Time

http://paper.lib.uiowa.edu/

(Thanks to @wvmierlo for bringing this to our attention)

The project aims to to better understand paper composition and conservation by analysing paper specimens from 14th-19th centuries.



From the project website:

"Historical papers vary considerably in their present-day condition for reasons that are not fully understood. This website shares the results of research on 1,578 paper specimens made between the fourteenth and the nineteenth centuries. The papers tested were selected from collections at the Newberry Library and The University of Iowa, and were analyzed using nondestructive instrumentation. The Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Kress Foundation, and The University of Iowa provided funding support.

The results of this 2007-10 project show that the oldest papers are often in the best condition, in part, we believe, because they contain high levels of gelatin and calcium. “People often wonder why in the digital age we should be concerned about paper stability,” says principal investigator Timothy Barrett. “Artifacts on paper often contain valuable information related to human history that is not accessible in a digital image. Not only do these artifacts need to be preserved for future generations, but paper copies that can be read without electronic hardware will continue to be essential backups to the digital record long into the future.” The results of this research will be of special interest to paper historians, paper and book conservators, and producers of archival papers."

Press release: http://news-releases.uiowa.edu/2012/january/011712paper.html

Daily Record of Researching in the Plath Archive

Peter K Steinberg is recording his experiences of working with the Plath archive at Smith on the blog - http://sylviaplathinfo.blogspot.com/

The posts include images, description of items in the archive, the general feeling of working with the papers, information about places she visited in the area and demonstrations of her typewriter etc.


Update from the Plath archive: Day 1
Recording his initial searches

Update from the Plath archive: Day 2
Including transcribing Plath's letters and and image of a greetings card in the collection

Update from the Plath archive: Day 3
A tour (with photos) of some of  the places Plath visited and an image of her prom dress which is in the Smith collection

Update from the Plath archive: Day 4
Including a video of Peter typing on Plath's Royal typewriter.

See also Peter's records of his time at the Lilly Library, Indiana - Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5 

Dickens Exhibit at the British Library

The British Library currently has a free exhibition on Charles Dickens as part of the Dickens 2012 celebrations—which you’ve probably noticed merrily swamping the BBC over Christmas, with a pretty good adaptation of Great Expectations and a number of documentaries fromArmando Iannucci’s views on Dickens’ style to Sue Perkin’s wonderful programme about the long suffering and overlooked Mrs Dickens.

The British Library exhibit , titled ‘Charles Dickens and the Supernatural’, focuses on Dickens’ exploration of and relationship with supernatural phenomenon in his works, correspondence and writing, and showcases a number of prints, first editions, copies of the Victorian periodicals over which Dickens presided such as Household Wordsand All the Year Round, and original letters and illustrations from his works.

The exhibit space is fairly small in the Folio Society Gallery, but well worth a look if you’re around the BL, particularly for its display of the marvellously sensationalist penny magazines of Dickens youth, such as The Terrific Register, which covered everything from ghouls and ghosts to cannibalism and incest.

I also caught the Illuminated Manuscripts [not free] exhibition while there-- ‘Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination’-- beautiful and fascinating, especially one illustrated pilgrimage map, much like a medieval religious pop-up book, made into an interactive digital display enabling the viewing to chart the root through each intricate illustration and direction. Wonderful: http://www.bl.uk/whatson/exhibitions/royalman/about/index.html