Preservation Survey of National Book Awards Archives

FAIN: PG-50378-08

National Book Foundation (New York, NY 10016-7801)
Harold Augenbraum (Project Director: May 2007 to March 2010)

A general preservation assessment of the Foundation's archives documenting the founding and development of the Foundation and its National Book Awards. The collection includes the original letters of literary and political figures, including W.H. Auden, Wallace Stevens, Ralph Ellison, William Faulkner, Saul Bellow, Susan Sontag, and Dwight Eisenhower.

The National Book Foundation seeks a grant of $5,000 to contract with the Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC) to conduct a preservation survey of its archival holdings accumulated during the past 58 years. The Foundation is the parent of the National Book Awards, one of the most prestigious literary awards in America. Its archives hold unique letters, telegrams, photographs, programs, posters, newspaper clippings, other materials on paper, audiotapes, videotapes, CDs, DVDs and other materials that document the National Book Awards from their founding in 1950 to 2007. The survey will be used to begin the process of making the archives more widely known and accessible to students, scholars, and others through electronic cataloging and digitization of some materials.