Comments on the initial darft

Hi, Katie.

This is looking great! I think the structure is very logical and clear and your topics are really pertinent and useful (so much so that I am thinking about "borrowing" one or two for my own page, particularly the list of literary archives-related organizations). I also love the idea of including a list of literary archives, as Lisa included a list of archives in Ontario, and I may also add a list of performing arts archives to my page.

I can't believe it didn't occur to me until now, but I actually did some reading on literary archives for a paper I did for our selection and acquisition last term. In particular, Catherine Hobbs at LAC is a big literary manuscripts person, so perhaps you could expand the Literary Archives in the United States section to Literary Archives in the North America and could add some details from her articles. Here are a couple that might be useful:

• Hobbs, Catherine. “New Approaches to Canadian Literary Archives.” Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue D’études Canadiennes 40, no. 2 (2007): 109–119.
• Hobbs, Catherine. “Personal Archives: The Character of Personal Archives: Reflections on the Value of Records of Individuals.” Archivaria no. 52 (Fall 2001): 126–135.
• Stewart, Virginia R. “A Primer on Manuscript Field Work.” In A Modern Archives Reader: Basic Readings on Archival Theory and Practice, edited by Maygene F. Daniels and Timothy Walch, 124–138. Washington, D.C: National Archives and Records Service, U.S. General Services Administration, 1984. (I think this includes stuff about literary materials, but I may be misremembering.)

One of the things that came up in these articles that would be interesting to talk about is the challenge of dealing with a still living donors (including dealing with their concerns about privacy), which seems to come up a lot with literary materials.

I hope this is useful, but feel free to ask me if you have questions. Great work, Katie!

Thanks Chelsea! I have read Catherine Hobbs and found them very interesting, but did not quit manage to fit what she had to say into the entry. I am planning on adding a section on Canada though, so those articles will probably be relevant for that topic.

I have also read and thought about the practice of authors donating their papers while still living. It's becoming increasingly common and raises some interesting issues (Does their awareness of the destiny of their papers into the archives affect how and what they keep? Should the author give input into the selection, arrangement, and description of their fonds?). Also, a lot has been written and debated about the market that exists for authors' papers. Repositories that have the money spend big bucks on more well known authors papers. I haven't figured out how to work any of this into the entry either, but may find one as it evolves.