A Memory Keeper of New Orleans

A Memory Keeper of New Orleans

Much respect to the biographer of John Kennedy Toole for his marathon, week-long, one-man digitizing effort in Tulane's Special Collections. I have had similar (but not as lengthy) sessions of photographing court files, newspaper articles, city directories, and microfilm for later reading and research.

"I spent five full days at the archive, from opening to closing, hunched over a table with my camera, capturing every page of the twenty-six boxes of the collection. At the end of the week, I had not read a single word from the archive. I flew home exhausted and sore. But I had gained something invaluable--a digitized version of the Toole Papers. And that became the backbone to Butterfly in the Typewriter."