Literary Bytes: New Approaches to Born-Digital Archives at Pavia Archivi Digitali

This chapter details the "Pavia Archivi Digitali" (PAD) project at the University of Pavia, Italy, which focuses on preserving born-digital archives of contemporary writers. Initiated in 2009 and now part of the Centro Manoscritti, PAD addresses the acquisition, management, and preservation of "digitale d'autore." It outlines the project's evolution, including its shift from proprietary software to an open-source-based "Digital Preservation Workflow" (DPW) system. The chapter describes the DPW's features, such as metadata extraction, file normalization, and similarity searches, emphasizing its adherence to the OAIS Reference Model. It also discusses challenges like managing diverse archive submissions and future developments like web archiving and wider accessibility.