Survival of the Weakest: Preserving and Analysing Born-Digital Records to Understand How Small Poetry Publishers Survive in the Global Marketplace

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Drawing on previously inaccessible born-digital records, this project seeks to understand how small poetry publishers survive in a global marketplace dominated by large, multinational publishing firms. It focuses on the specific case of Carcanet Press, an internationally-recognised poetry publisher. In March 1999, Carcanet bought the core of the poetry list of Oxford University Press. With Oxford's complete abandonment of the field, a small provincial press had become a world-leading publisher of poetry. But this evolution did not happen overnight. Founded in 1969 by Michael Schmidt and Peter Jones, Carcanet moved from Oxford to Manchester in 1972. The press went on to build a diverse list, including poetry in translation and by neglected women poets. Among the distinguished writers associated with Carcanet are Elizabeth Jennings, Ted Hughes and many others. The central argument of the project is that Carcanet has successfully targeted niches of poetry "users" interested in a total artistic experience not limited to solitary reading. From its origins, Carcanet actively promoted its list in literary festivals and other events, before leveraging the technological revolution to engage with new audiences. The Carcanet brand is a good example of "disruptive innovation" (to use an influential concept developed by the Harvard business professor Clayton Christensen). While other firms relied on the prestige of poetry in traditional literary centres, Carcanet has created new markets from its base in Manchester. In short, Carcanet has found a way to turn non-consumers into new consumers of poetry - who read poems on their tablets or phones, listen to podcasts and watch videos of poetry performances. Despite its importance in the literary landscape, Carcanet has attracted little scholarly attention - in part because the largest part of its archive is closed to researchers. This archive, which comprises born-digital as well as analogue records, is held at the John Rylands Library (Manchester). The project will preserve and make accessible internationally-significant archival materials held in the uncatalogued part of the paper collection and in the digital collection (currently closed due to data protection issues). The opening of rich archival materials will lead to the production of new knowledge on small poetry publishers and on the overall issue of born-digital records. Coinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of Carcanet, the project will offer unique insight into a publishing house central to the contemporary literary landscape. It will also provide a model to preserve and make born-digital records more accessible to researchers, in order to produce new knowledge. While we still have letters, manuscripts and other physical documents from the past centuries, we are in danger of losing digital documents created in the last decade. By fostering close collaborations between scholars and archivists, the project seeks to answer one of the most pressing challenge in the humanities and social sciences: the transition from print to digital. Outputs:_My monograph will be the first history of Carcanet Press, from its humble beginnings in 1969 to its current world-leading position._The project's digital resource will incorporate newly catalogued archival materials related to Ted Hughes and Elizabeth Jennings, oral history interviews of key figures associated with Carcanet, selected emails produced by the press, as well as data visualisations based on this digital archive._An exhibition/ display at the JRL will include key archival findings and artefacts as well as a "memory booth" to allow visitors to share their memories of Carcanet._A one-day workshop and international conference will bring together archivists and scholars to find solutions to the problem of born-digital records in literary and publishers' archives. Major contributions will then be published in a special issue of a leading journal.