Virtual Verse in the Library: Exploring the e-Poetry Landscape

Green, Harriett E.; Fleming-May, Rachel

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/55214 Copy

Description

Title

Virtual Verse in the Library: Exploring the e-Poetry Landscape

Author(s)

• Green, Harriett E.
• Fleming-May, Rachel

Issue Date

2013-12-08

Keyword(s)

digital humanities

Abstract

The publication of literary works in digital form online represents a new era of literary expression, as well as an enhanced democratization of literary culture. But while web-based publishing has expanded the availability of literary works, search and documentation of the works is a concern: Many works only can be accessed through browsing of individual publications or known-item searches, if they can be found at all. Furthermore, it is unknown whether the online-only works published only on the websites of print journals are indexed to the same extent as the print content. In light of this gap in the documentation of rapidly expanding body of digital literature, the authors began a year-long investigation into the current discoverability of online-only or “born digital” poetry. This paper will present the results of their needs assessment study, conducted under the auspices an IMLS National Leadership Planning grant. The grant project sought to speak with communities involved in the creation, dissemination, and potential preservation of online-only poetry. Through analysis of surveys and interviews with creative writing faculty, academic librarians, and small press literary publishers and editors, the paper will examine the needs for enabling discovery of online-only poetry. The study analyzes responses on patterns of use of online-only poetry, modes of reading and writing digital content, and the types of tools that would facilitate user access to works produced by digital literary publications. The paper considers the feasibility of an index of online-only poetry, as well as other proposed solutions from the study data, including a discovery tool and a metadata feed. This paper ultimately addresses a largely unexamined area in the preservation of electronic literature, and reveals an avenue of humanities data curation that critically engages scholars, information professionals, and literary artists together in making digital works accessible to scholarly and public audiences alike.

Type of Resource

image

Language

en

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/55214

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