The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded $42,000 to migrate the Electronic Literature Organization’s (ELO) archives to an open-source repository system that ensures their preservation and public accessibility. Much of the archiving and documentation will take place at WSU Vancouver’s Electronic Literature Lab, under the leadership of Professor Dene Grigar, director of the lab.
WSU Vancouver is the current sponsoring institution for the ELO, and Grigar is its president. The university also is a partner in the project, titled “A Comprehensive Online Portal for Electronic Literature Works.” Other partners are the ELO, the Electronic Textual Cultures Lab at the University of Victoria (Canada) and Compute Canada.
The ELO’s digital archives consist of seven collections of original digital literature––typically referred to as electronic literature, or e-lit. The project addresses the need for improved access, discovery and preservation for these works so that they will be available to scholars of the present and future.
Nicholas Schiller, WSU Vancouver librarian and associate director of the Electronic Literature Lab, will also participate as co-PI. In addition, the project involves scholars from two other institutions: Leonardo Flores, professor at the University of Puerto Rico Mayagüez, and Abby Adams, digital archivist at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. Student research assistants at WSU Vancouver will also help.
By Brenda Alling for WSU Vancouver