archives Archives - Evanston Public Library

U. of Texas Purchases Poet's Archive

January 21, 2014

Former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins sold his papers to the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. The archive contains notebooks, doodles, clippings, and drafts of published and unpublished poems, as well as correspondence, recordings, and diaries. Mr. Collins decided to sell his papers after realizing how much material he had, including lines of a poem written on the backs of bank deposit slips. “I tried to look very serious as if I were making a monster deposit,” he said. You can read the rest of this NYT article here – and check the EPL catalog for works by this popular and prolific poet.

Laura

Radical-ly Chic Collection for NYPL

November 22, 2013

New York Public Library has acquired author Tom Wolfe’s archive, including materials for his novels, letters from friends Hunter S. Thompson, William F. Buckley and Gay Talese, works of journalism, and interviews with “historically significant figures like the test pilot Chuck Yeager.” Library president Anthony W. Marx called the archive “amazing”, saying: “His work touches on so much of the sociology of the city. Now this acquisition makes all of his material public.” The collection will probably be opened to researchers by next summer. Read the entire NYT article here and check the EPL catalog for works by Mr. Wolfe.

Laura

Go Online with Emily

October 25, 2013

Dickinson – that is. The Emily Dickinson Archive which was inaugurated Wednesday gives scholars and lay readers access to “high-resolution photos of thousands of the poet’s manuscripts, including envelopes or bits of paper with poems jotted on them, letters, doodles, and many, many exuberant em-dashes.” The project reignited a decades-long dispute between Harvard and Amherst, which hold the two largest collections of Dickinson’s papers. When Emily Dickinson died in 1886, she left behind “just 10 published poems and a vast and enigmatic handwritten paper trail.” And that’s when the trouble began. Read more about the quarrel here and check the EPL catalog for works by this fascinating poet.

Laura