These have been the key themes of the Diasporic Literary Archives Network, ever since its formation by various departments of the University of Reading in 2012.<\/p>\n
Authors’ papers offer unique insights into the creative process and as such are hugely valuable to the scholarly community, as well as an often treasured archive of national culture. In recent years the destination of individual collections has become a contested topic of international interest. Given that authors migrate, and papers become dispersed among collectors, families, publishing businesses, and in locations in different countries, the diasporic character of literary archives demands serious attention. The acquisition and preservation of archives is expensive, and subject to the policies and ambitions of governments, as well as individual collectors and patrons. Recently, writers, agents and estates have become more attentive to the political and commercial issues involved in the donation, deposit or sale of their papers, whilst international conglomeration in the publishing industry has generated important implications for copyright, ideas and realities of ownership, and the pragmatics of scholarly access. Furthermore, in the digital age, new technologies hold the potential to transform our understandings of location, access and preservation, affecting in turn the nature of the creative process and of manuscripts, and the forms of scholarship that respond most productively to these.<\/p>\n