- Collection Overview
- Collection Description & Creator Information
- Access & Use
- Collection History
- Find Related Materials
Digital Writings and Recordings, 1996-2020 (mostly 2011-2020)
Collection Overview
Collection Description & Creator Information
- Scope and Contents
Consists primarily of word processing documents, as well as audio and video recordings, documenting O'Connor's writings and work on various book, theater, and radio projects, performances, and reviews of work by others, mostly from 2011 through 2020. Materials include notes towards O'Connor's projects, short stories, poems, essays, reviews, and journalism; multiple drafts of his novel Shadowplay and a film-script adaptation of the novel; drafts of The Vampyre Man, a radio play for BBC Radio 3; video recordings of rehearsals for Grace, including deleted scenes; and notes towards a nonfiction book about the teaching of creative writing. There are also around seventy sound recordings made by O'Connor on home equipment, including many of his RTE radio diaries and readings; and some extracts from "The Music of Ghost Light," a gala event at the Abbey Theatre on April 3, 2011. Files extracted from floppy disks and optical media also include some earlier drafts of writings from the late 1990s, as well as additional recordings of various performance works.
- Arrangement
Original order was maintained. Folders that O'Connor maintained on his computer are followed by files extracted from floppy disks and optical media.
Collection History
- Appraisal
Printed books were removed from the collection during 2022 processing and transferred to the Rare Book Division or the Library's General Collection; duplicates were discarded. Commercial audiovisual media were also removed and transferred to the Mendel Music Library. No other materials were removed from the collection during 2022 processing beyond routine appraisal practices.
- Sponsorship:
Processing of this collection was sponsored by the Delafield fund.
- Processing Information
Baseline processing of the paper-based portion of the collection was completed by Kelly Bolding in January 2022. Physical materials were roughly sorted by book project or genre/type and housed into archival folders and boxes, but no efforts were made to further arrange materials below this level. Finding aid written by Kelly Bolding in January-March 2022, incorporating some description provided by the dealer. Born-digital materials received as a file transfer were acquired directly from O'Connor by Kelly Bolding in October 2020 and processed by Amy Vo in September 2021. Born-digital materials received on physical media were processed by Kelly Bolding in January-March 2022; at this time, files could not be extracted from disk007 due to damage.
The born-digital materials in this collection have been processed according to Princeton University Library's Born-Digital Processing Workflows. For more information on the workflow, please read our full Born-Digital Processing Information Note.
Access & Use
- Conditions Governing Access
The collection is open for research, with the exception of diaries from 2012 and later, which are closed until ten years after the date of creation.
- Conditions Governing Use
Single copies may be made for research purposes. To cite or publish quotations that fall within Fair Use, as defined under U. S. Copyright Law, no permission is required. For instances beyond Fair Use, it is the responsibility of the researcher to determine whether any permissions related to copyright, privacy, publicity, or any other rights are necessary for their intended use of the Library's materials, and to obtain all required permissions from any existing rights holders, if they have not already done so. Princeton University Library's Special Collections does not charge any permission or use fees for the publication of images of materials from our collections, nor does it require researchers to obtain its permission for said use. The department does request that its collections be properly cited and images credited. More detailed information can be found on the Copyright, Credit and Citations Guidelines page on our website. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us through the Ask Us! form.
- Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
For preservation reasons, original analog and digital media may not be read or played back in the reading room. Users may visually inspect physical media but may not remove it from its enclosure. All analog audiovisual media must be digitized to preservation-quality standards prior to use. Audiovisual digitization requests are processed by an approved third-party vendor. Please note, the transfer time required can be as little as several weeks to as long as several months and there may be financial costs associated with the process. Requests should be directed through the Ask Us Form.
This collection contains digital files, which may require specific software or hardware for access. Refer to our Tips on Accessing Born-Digital Content for information on how to render these file formats.
- Credit this material:
Digital Writings and Recordings; Joseph O'Connor Papers, C1652, Manuscripts Division, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library
- Location:
-
Firestone LibraryOne Washington RoadPrinceton, NJ 08544, USA
- Storage Note:
- ReCAP (rcpxm): Box 18
