Born digital preservation of e-lit: a live internet traversal of Sarah Smith’s King of Space

Abstract

Sarah Smith’s King of Space, published in 1991, is the first work of science fiction produced as electronic literature. Released on a 3.5-in. floppy disk and requiring a Macintosh computer running System Software 7.0-MacOS 9x, it is now inaccessible to scholars interested in early digital literary forms, particularly of science fiction by women authors. Because this work is interactive and involves animations, images, sound, and words, preserving it requires an approach that retains as much of these experiences as possible for future audiences. To accomplish this task, our lab––the Electronic Literature Lab at Washington State University, Vancouver––used the Pathfinders methodology developed by Grigar and Stuart Moulthrop, adding to it Live Stream play-throughs on YouTube promoted through social media channels. This essay outlines our process and discusses the potential of this methodology for preserving other kinds of multimedia and interactive work.