After the digital revolution

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How can we improve the preservation and access to born-digital records in literary and publishers’ archives?
“there lie in his hoards many records that few now can read, even of the lore-masters, for their scripts and tongues have become dark to later men.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
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 pres…