Process and progress: working with born-digital material in the Wendy Cope Archive at the British Library

Abstract

This article considers the processing of the born-digital archive of the English poet Wendy Cope, deposited at the British Library in 2011. Using the Cope Archive as a template, the authors set out a six-part workflow to acquire, preserve, process and make it accessible. The Cope Archive, which contains several types of digital media, presented various problems. The authors, however, were able to successfully apply their workflow and outline the various software and methods used at each stage. They conclude that, though each born-digital archive presents a unique set of issues, the proposed workflow is a successful framework that would be applicable to most.