Matthew Kirschenbaum Publishes Mellon-Funded Research
March 24, 2020
Matthew Kirschenbaum has published Books.Files: A Report on the Preservation of Digital Assets in the Contemporary Publishing Industry.
This open-access white paper (nearly 25,000 words, with sidebar contributions from five additional authorities) is the culmination of two years of research funded in part by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Addressed to archivists, scholars in the history of the book, and members of the publishing industry, the report outlines the unique challenges for the traditional genre of publishers' archives at a moment when bookmaking itself now consists almost entirely of digital processes and workflows---right up until the moment a book is actually printed. The report is available for download via UMD Library's DRUM, Humanities Commons, and the NYC-based Book Industry Study Group.
More information on this project is available here.