The Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library at Emory University is home to collections of archives and papers created by some of the most studied authors and poets of the past century, including many of Ireland’s most inspiring writers. This globally significant collection — with papers from Seamus Heaney, W. B. Yeats, Michael Longley, Derek Mahon, Paul Muldoon, Ciaran Carson, Rita Ann Higgins, Edna O’Brien, Thomas Kinsella and Medbh McGuckian — is one of the Rose Library’s best-known collections.

The Irish holdings are also why the Rose Library staff has begun work on a virtual reading room to expand access to its collections. Their work is supported by a $250,000 planning grant from the Mellon Foundation to develop a technical and policy framework for a virtual reading room.

Currently, researchers and students must visit the Rose Library in person to use many of the collections, as with most literary archives. In-person use is a challenge for researchers who are not on campus — and especially for the hundreds who travel across the U.S. and the world to use the materials.

A virtual reading room would help make it possible for researchers to access collections without requiring travel.

You can read more in an article in Emory’s web site at: https://news.emory.edu/stories/2023/11/er_mellon_grant_02-11-2023/story.html