Please
Note: The Milman Parry Finding Aid is not yet on-line, please check
back here for news of its launch.
In July 2002, the Milman Parry Collection of Oral Literature (MPCOL)
received a generous grant from Harvard University's Library
Digital Initiative (LDI) for the development of digital resources.
The MPCOL's digitalization project has had two distinct goals:
first, to make available to the general public a wide selection
of the original manuscripts and audio recordings contained in the
Parry archive; second, to develop a new set of tools which will
improve access to archived materials.
The second of these goals coincided well with LDI's stated purpose
of improving the digital infrastructure of the Harvard library system.
The partnership with LDI has resulted not only in the creation of
finding aids for both the Milman Parry and Albert B. Lord Collections
(subsets of the larger MPCOL), but also in the development of a
new electronic database.
The MPCOL database is based on Matthew Kay's The Index of the
Milman Parry Collection 1933-1935 (New York: Garland, 1995).
At present it includes records only for the heroic songs and interviews
in the Parry Collection and for the Albert B. Lord Collection, but
MPCOL intends to expand coverage to include as well the Parry Collection’s
lyric songs and Lord's 1937 collection of Albanian epic.