Sixteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

Contemporary artistic expression via digital media allows for an unprecedented wealth of new and diverse voices to be heard from across the globe. Poetry, one of the most dynamic, fluid, and endlessly inventive forms of art, is reaching a larger audience now than ever before, thanks to digital means of creation and access. For academic libraries, the traditional role of collecting physical objects for the humanities, books, manuscripts, films, recordings, is being re-thought as a result of the need to include a multitude of new digital artworks. The function of preserving the artistic record in physical formats has defined humanities collections in libraries for centuries; the transition into the digital environment simultaneously broadens poetry (and other humanities) collections while also profoundly altering how libraries describe new poetry media as part of their collections. The key question is how best to provide access from within library systems to digital art which may be by nature ephemeral. My paper will explore these aspects of the twenty-first century library, digital publishing, and digital collections, and point toward a vision of transformed humanities collections in academic libraries.