The Death of Correspondence? Interpersonal Communication and Special Collections in the Digital Age

Abstract

It is hard to imagine the organization of manuscript collections without the category of correspondence. Few classificatory entities are more ubiquitous, whether used as a records series in itself or as a modifying facet within a series. Most personal papers, including those drawn from literary, political, and commercial contexts, contain collected letters, and so do many organizational records. Collected letters, furthermore, represent the most likely aspect of a collection to lend themselves to publication after the death of the creator. No other literary form belongs so uniquely to libraries, archives, and special collections, whose compilation and safekeeping of scattered letters . . .