Museum of Writing
Project URL
http://blog.museumofwriting.org
Summary
The Museum of Writing is an ambitious 2-year project, funded by the University of London, to catalogue a unique and eclectic collection of some 15,000 writing objects, and to develop an innovative and rich website which will explain the evolution of writing materials over a five thousand-year period.
The collection itself is, almost single-handedly, the creation of one man, Alan Cole, who has been building it for more than fifty years; as such it is not only a huge assembly of historically significant objects but also the autobiography of a collector and his culture and times. One challenge in creating this new online resource is to find ways to effectively capture and use the 'collector's imprint' to inform the collection. The project will record Cole's account of the acquisition of key items in his collection and develop a range of audio-visual materials explaining and demonstrating how objects work or would have been used; this narrative will then be richly woven around the objects in a way which will bring the collection to life - and make a significant contribution to provenance and heritage studies.
In addition to giving access to the complete collection for the first time, the website will allow users to digitally curate their own collections of objects for interest, personal research, or pedagogical use, and will also serve as an online hub for new scholarship associated with the history of writing and communication.
Start Date
September 2010
Status
In progress
Participants
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Participant
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Role of participant
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Institution
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Department
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Professor Simon Eliot
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Principal Investigator
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University of London
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School of Advanced Studies
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Professor Johanna Drucker
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Consultant
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UCLA
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Graduate School of Education and Information Studies
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Paul Vetch
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Technical Research Director
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King's College London
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Digital Humanities
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Funders
University of London Dean’s Development Fund
Disciplines
History of the Book, Museum Studies