I’m very happy to share that my essay, “Restoring Authority for Women Writers: Name Authority Records as Digital Recovery Scholarship,” now appears in Huntington Library Quarterly‘s special issue on Women in Book History, 1660-1830, edited by Betty Schellenberg and Michelle Levy. My section also features essays by Kandice Sharren and E. J. Clery, and our section ends with a cowritten response and vision regarding naming and narratives of authorship, especially for women. Both pieces — my essay and our response — can be found in volume 84, no. 1 (Spring 2021).

My essay argues that personal name authority records in the Library of Congress Name Authority File (LCNAF), which feeds directly into the Virtual International Authority File, are valuable for recovering women writers whose texts are electronically circulated yet whose identities as authors and people are often difficult to research. Using The Stainforth Library of Women’s Writing as a case study, this essay encourages close collaboration with catalog librarians who are certified by the Name Authority Cooperative Program to create and contribute name authority records to the LCNAF for lesser-known women writers. This methodology can advance feminist recovery scholarship by curating a global women’s book history that values women’s identities on and beyond the page.

Find this issue on Project Muse muse.jhu.edu/article/798283