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Will Self Born Digital Archive

Find out more about our work on the Will Self Born Digital Archive project.

Various floppy disks

Collection area: Contemporary Archives

Project dates: Feb 2026 – Dec 2028

Contact: Callum McKean

Project summary: This born-digital collection offers a unique insight into the creative life and work of the contemporary English writer and journalist Will Self and his social environment. It is comprised of 47 floppy disks and 1 hard drive which contain drafts of his major novels, correspondence, and non-fiction writing from the late 1980s to the mid-2010s.

This material, which will be made available via a terminal in the Library’s Reading Rooms complements Will Self’s paper-based archive which is already accessible.

The completion of this project will mark the first time a UK repository has described and made available records from a hard-drive deposited as part of a personal archive.