For the last five years, the Electronic Literature Lab (ELL) has been able to fund undergraduate researchers to work in the lab, participating in faculty research projects and undertaking their own.

In 2018-19 the ELL has hired six students, four of which are able to begin this summer to work on the “A Comprehensive Online Portal for Electronic Literature Works” (COPE) project, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Specifically, they will ensure the quality control of the metadata migrated to the digital asset management system, an experience that will help them gain knowledge of research methodologies, lab procedures, procedural logic, and library and archival practices.

The four students involved in COPE include Austin Fields, Katie Bowen, Holly Slocum, and Mariah Gwin. Katie will serve as the Project Manager for the Team. Both she and Mariah have been working in the lab for the last year documenting works of electronic literature and overseeing lab activities. Austin worked for the CMDC program last year as the social media strategist and so comes to the project with strong writing and research skills. Both he and Holly have been attending ELL events all year and have a passion for electronic literature and the work that ELL has been doing to preserve e-lit.

Two other students begin this fall and will work on the 2018-19 Live Stream Traversals, Wikipedia-A-Thon, ELL Catalog, an other lab activities.

It gives Nicholas and I great pleasure to be able to provide these kind of funded opportunities to CMDC students.