University of Maryland-Baltimore County

Seeking help for a promising opportunity to help digitize (while maintaining the appropriate permissions) some of the Ellison Papers for the Library of Congress. LoC is currently requesting proposals for third-party digitization of some of their holdings. See http://www.loc.gov/about/business/thirdpartydig/. In Ellison's case, perhaps some of his essay drafts, notes, and other material would be a nice place to start, since they sometimes fly below radar compared to the novels and correspondence. I would need different kinds of contributors, particularly with the technology, programming, and interface. I've also asked a few Ellison scholars for the participation and/or advice. This project would need a balance between textual studies, archival work, and different kinds of technology. If any of you are interested or know people who might be, please let me know. This is potentially a major project, and it would help us merge Elllison studies with digital humanities. Please contact me: [email protected]. From the Library of Congress: Access is open for the Ralph Ellison Papers, but all rights are reserved and the collection includes an abundance of protected materials from many hands. The collection is large, valuable to scholars, and in fairly good condition. Certain sections arrived fragile or damaged and/or became overused; these were moved to a closed section and replaced with photocopies for reference use. The Papers of Ralph Ellison (1914 -1994) comprise some 74,800 items in 314 containers plus 25 oversize. They reflect the work of African-American author and educator, Ralph Ellison who won the National Book Award for Invisible Man, his first novel, in 1953. The collection consists of general correspondence, organizational correspondence and reports, family papers, drafts, notes, and production files for novels, essays, poetry, short stories, reviews, and other writings, speeches, lectures, and interviews, reference file, and miscellany. Among the many works documented are Invisible Man (1952), Shadow and Act (1964), Going to the Territory (1985), and episodes and drafts of Ellison’s second unpublished novel which his literary executor edited into two different versions and published posthumously.