The James Merrill Digital Archive: Channeling the Collaborative Spirit(s)
Channel: CPN-DAM
Date: 2016-12-12

The James Merrill Digital Archive: Channeling the Collaborative Spirit(s)

Shannon Davis, Washington University in St. Louis
Joel Minor, Washington University in St. Louis

The James Merrill Papers, housed in Washington University Libraries Special Collections, contains manuscripts, drafts, and other materials from the renowned poet. In 2013, work began to digitize and deliver a selection of the Merrill Papers towards his epic poem, The Book of Ephraim. Because the Libraries’ already used Omeka digital exhibit software for a number of projects, the materials were delivered in an Omeka exhibit, The James Merrill Digital Archive. The process of transforming an archival collection into a digital exhibit required the expertise and input of many collaborators including library staff in Special Collections and Scholarly Publishing, and students and staff from the Humanities Digital Workshop. Through this collaborative effort, scanning, metadata, initial arrangement of materials, and creation of an Omeka exhibit was completed over the course of a summer. The exhibit showcases Merrill’s writing and editing process for The Book of Ephraim, including Ouija board session transcripts, poem drafts, and typescripts. Development of the digital archive has continued, as students and staff transcribe and encode some of Merrill’s handwritten and typed manuscripts using Subversion versioning software and oXygen XML editor. Future goals for the project include continuing TEI XML markup; adding Merrill materials from other archives; and continuing to train and work with students to add to the exhibit. The James Merrill Digital Archive is a demonstration of cross-campus and interdepartmental collaboration, employing student workers to perform high-level exhibit curation and encoding, and using and customizing Omeka for delivering sophisticated digital collections. Presented by Shannon Davis, Digital Library Services Manager, and Joel Minor, Curator of Modern Literature Collection and Manuscripts, this presentation will be delivered by project contributors who can speak to both the digital and archival aspects of the collection.