ie chart of our volunteer transcribers’ contributions, created by former Digital archivist Helena Clarkson.
Beginning my journey as a volunteer for the MAPP Transcription Project in 2022, I transitioned to the role of Trainee Archive Assistant at the University of Reading last September. Once only focusing on capturing and transcribing every detail from the original sources, I now not only transcribe, but also proofread transcriptions, adding new content to the website, coordinating with volunteers and...
We are delighted to announce the publication of The Edinburgh Companion to Women in Publishing, 1900-2020. This has been a long-running editorial project led by MAPP's co-directors Alice Staveley, Helen Southworth, Claire Battershill, Nicola Wilson, and Elizabeth Willson Gordon, with additional editors Marrisa Joseph, Daniela La Penna and Sophie Heywood. The book is the fruit of many years'...
Earlier this year, I spent a whirlwind week in New York visiting the Berg Collection at the New York Public Library. My research assistant position with MAPP entails liaising with partner institutions like the Berg as well as various author and business estate holders (and getting to do some exciting travel and archival work to boot!). Carolyn Vega, Curator of the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg...
MAPP team members at Charleston House. Photo by Emily Mathias.
As a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin, I’ve been lucky enough to work at the Harry Ransom Center on UT’s campus for the past two years. In my time there, I’ve been a member of the reference team, and my day-to-day tasks usually involve fulfilling digitization requests for remote patrons, providing support to researchers in our reading room, and leading instruction sessions...
Image of volunteers and staff at a small garden party celebrating the first 100 transcriptions. Its shows people sitting by a table which has trays of biscuites on it
We are delighted to share that Helena Clarkson and MAPP's 'virtual volunteers' team has won this year's University of Reading Research Awards in the 'Openness in Research' category.  Volunteers shed light on modernist publishing - Engagement and Impact (reading.ac.uk) Helena and Nicola did a little filming in MERL's lovely gardens for a short video explaining the project. Helena has also being...
Inside front cover, book from Pullman's Leonard and Virginia Woolf library
Last October, I visited the beautiful Washington State University Pullman and spent a week immersed in the Library of Leonard and Virginia Woolf. Part of my role as a research assistant with MAPP is to collaborate and develop relationships with partner institutions, including Pullman. The team at the library’s Manuscripts, Archives, & Special Collections (MASC) generously offered their time...
Perhaps you’ve read Virginia Woolf’s essay, “Phases of Fiction”? To be sure, it may be one of her lesser-known works, but Margaret West, Hogarth Press manager in the early 1930s outright denied its existence in a 1934 letter, three years after the essay’s initial publication in the American periodical The Bookman. West responded to a request from the Macmillan Company of Canada to excerpt from...
Volunteers in Special Collections reading room looking at papers
As we are about to head into the holidays, we thought it would be nice to share with you what we have been doing behind the scenes at MAPP. We have been working on uploading more content to the site; there are now over 80 archive folders to browse and research.  Featuring correspondence relating to the works of Virginia and Leonard Woolf and a whole host of modernist authors including Vita...
Cover of Twilight in Delhi
Ahmed Ali and British Printers: Natalie Wang reflects on her Winter-Summer 2022 CESTA internship with MAPP, Stanford University This past year, I worked with Dr. Alice Staveley to append metadata to documents and archival holdings collected from The Hogarth Press. We catalogued information about the date, content descriptions, addresses of both creators and recipients, alongside others. Courtesy...
Frontage of the HRC
During the month of June, as Mapp's project archivist I was given the unique opportunity to visit and work with staff at the Harry Ransom Centre (HRC) in Texas, this is quite a rare experience for an archivist; we often work behind the scenes, travelling about in time, rather than locations! We at MAPP are a collaborative team and it's very important for us to share and exchange knowledge between...