The Diasporic Literary Archives (DLA) Network aims to promote international collaboration in the preservation of, and access to, literary archives. The network brings together a group of established scholars and experts from a variety of institutional backgrounds, and across different disciplines and regions, to initiate a context in which to practice and scrutinise methodological and conceptual frameworks. The network will seek to establish an international perspective on these issues through a programme of workshops, examining the complicated and sometimes competing motives of different stakeholders.

The first workshop, to be held at the University of Reading on 7-8 June 2012, examined the foundational questions of the network: preservation, migration, and the scholarly use of literary papers, and create working documents and action plans that will inform the subsequent workshops (held over 2012-2014). A brief review of the Reading workshop has been  posted on the DLA website by Stefano Bragato (Dept of Modern Languages & European Studies, University of Reading).

Among the features of the new DLA website is an International Location Register which provides the location of collections of authors’ papers from around the world.  The register is a work in progress and entries will be added over the course of the project. Entries are arranged alphabetically by authors’  surname and include links to the relevant collecting institution.