Beyond Baroque Foundation Archives Preservation Assessment

FAIN: PG-52004-13

Beyond Baroque Foundation (Venice, CA 90291-4805)
Lenka Minkowski (Project Director: May 2012 to September 2014)

Hiring a paper conservator to conduct a general preservation assessment of the Beyond Baroque archive, which includes more than 45,000 poetry chapbooks, monographs, and other materials related to the West Coast literary scene after 1950. The conservator would also train the archive's staff in collections care, as well as recommend the purchase of environmental monitoring equipment. The Beyond Baroque Foundation was founded in 1968 in Venice, California, and published a magazine and books of experimental poetry and art; its archive holds a variety of resources central to studying the work of poets and writers in Los Angeles, as well as that of some national figures, such as Charles Olson, Allen Ginsberg, and Christopher Isherwood.

The Beyond Baroque Foundation archives comprise over 45,000 poetry chapbooks, monographs, periodicals, ephemera, and audiovisual materials unique to the Southern California literary scene spanning from the 1950s to the present. Its collection of small press poetry books, chapbooks, and broadsides is perhaps the largest one available to the general public at any independent arts organization on the West Coast. In order to protect and promote the access to and awareness of the rich poetic literary history of Southern California contained in the archives, the grant would support three activities: 1) a general preservation assessment of the archives by a consultant, 2) the purchase of environmental monitoring equipment, and 3) staff education and training in basic collection care and preservation.