Minnesota Books and Authors

I’ve been at MPR about two months now (where has the time gone) and I’m growing ever more comfortable with it, and with my role here. I’m excited to see how it changes me.

You may recall from my last post that I spent my first week or so highlighting stories about Minnesota’s Native Writers as a way to honor the passing of author Jim Northrup. That project is related to an ongoing project here at MPR, made possible by a generous grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC). The goal of the Minnesota Books and Authors project is to digitize as many stories as possible that reflect the rich literary culture in Minnesota, from farmer poets to children’s authors to environmental writing. It’s an exciting two year grant project with two positions funded, digitizing related stories in our collection. Pushing some of the digitized content to the archive portal served as an interesting case study as I continue to survey metadata practices.

A few of my favorite stories include an interview with Justine Kerfoot, a reading of a Diane Glancy excerpt, and a look at authors in the southwest corner of the state.

Next week, the AAPB NDSR cohort will be reunited in Washington DC for the International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives (IASA) annual conference, so much of my time the past few days has been preparing for our panel! Wish us luck!

This post was written by Kate McManus, resident at Minnesota Public Radio.