Shedding light on an important archive: digitizing the Winnifred Eaton Reeve fonds

Date
2024-06-14
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Abstract
The Winnifred Eaton Reeve fonds, a significant collection in the literary archives at the University of Calgary, chronicles the works of Winnifred Eaton Reeve (1875-1954), a pivotal early Chinese North American fiction-writer who assumed the Japanese persona “Onoto Watanna.” This collection became the focal point of a comprehensive digitization project driven by substantial demand from academic researchers. This project was unique as it encompassed digitizing the entire collection. The session will include a brief overview of our first venture in digitizing an entire archival collection during a time of change. Attendees will learn about our approach to this digitization project and its multifaceted aspects that needed to be considered. The inherent fragility of the artifacts mandated extreme caution during every interaction, underscoring the need for digitization to safeguard and enhance accessibility for present and future Winnifred Eaton Reeve enthusiasts. Significant challenges and opportunities encountered during the project will be highlighted, including metadata mapping across disciplines, managing sensitive content, and adapting to unforeseen changes in the Canadian copyright landscape as well as substantially updating the finding aid and creating an online guide to increase access to the collection. With the successful completion of the digitization project, access collection either the physical or digital can be an effective way to raise awareness of this important Canadian author and generate new understandings through researching Winnifred Eaton Reeve’s life and works.
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Keywords
Winnifred Eaton Reeve, Digitization, Archives, Digital Collections
Citation
McKillop, C., Nisenson, J., & Ruddock, K. (2024, June 13-14). Shedding light on an important archive: digitizing the Winnifred Eaton Reeve fonds [Conference presentation]. 2024 SEAA/SGA Summer Symposium, Morrow, Georgia, USA.