A Proposal for a Digital Preservation Assessment for Wofford College’s Archival and Special Collections and Digital Preservation Training

FAIN: PG-263543-19

Wofford College (Spartanburg, SC 29303-3612)
Kevin Reynolds (Project Director: May 2018 to March 2022)

A digital preservation assessment of Wofford College’s archival and special collections, which chronicle South Carolina and southern regional history and encompass more than two terabytes of content.  The United Methodist Collection includes clergy directories, historical addresses, and photographs.  The B. R. Littlejohn Collection, documenting state history, contains 19th-century manuscripts and ledgers related to the slave trade, letters and journals of a Confederate prisoner-of-war who was one of the so-called “Immortal Six Hundred” Confederate officers held by the Union Army in 1864-66, and correspondence by Confederate General William R. Boggs and his family.  Additional unique items include a 1587 edition of Strabo’s Geography, with a fold-out map of the world by Gerardus and Rumold Mercator, and an 1880 South Carolina cookbook recording the cultural customs of the South.

Wofford College’s archival and special collections include college and United Methodist records, manuscripts, personal papers, ephemera, and rare books focused on history, literature, religion, the South, and educational history. Researchers, including Wofford students and faculty, genealogists and scholars use these collections to explore the past and interpret the present. The Sandor Teszler Library has been digitizing archives and special collections materials for over 10 years without a digital preservation plan. Over 2TB worth of digitized content exists on hard drives that lack remote archival backup. A digital preservation assessment will guide Wofford in developing a plan for preserving the college’s digitized and born-digital assets, improving access to in-demand archives and special collections materials. A digital preservation peer assessment workshop for local institutions will complement the college’s general assessment and build both preservation skills and community.