After the digital revolution: working with emails and born-digital records in literary and publishers' archives

摘要

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 preserved, they are often closed to researchers due to data protection and other issues. To paraphrase Tolkien, the scripts and tongues of our digital age risk becoming dark to later men. As late as 2010, a report from the American library community OCLC declared: 'Management of born-digital archival materials is still in its infancy'.~1 What progress has been made to preserve digital archives? How can we improve access to born-digital collections? And how can scholars produce new research using emails and other born-digital records?