About
The Museum of Fictional Literary Artifacts is a collaborative digital collection and literary analysis project created by English for New Media Students at Dakota State University.
The Museum of Fictional Literary Artifacts is determined to provide an archive that houses a vast collection of fictional artifacts found in all forms of literary endeavors. Our goal is to provide a more objective look at literature and the fictional objects that provide meaning to those stories. The images that have been chosen for the items in the MFLA database are representative of the highest quality image formats that were accessible at the time of each item's creation. These images may include photographs, paintings, sketches, ect.
Purpose Statement and Procedures
The primary project goal is to create and collect born-digital objects to represent fictional literary artifacts that would be collected into museums, if those objects were, in fact, real things. Our purpose is to study literary artifacts and draw connections and conclusions about how they pertain to or move a story. The MFLA collects objects from novels, novellas, short stories, poems, comic books, and other works of literary fiction. By making these objects publicly available for both contribution and study, our intention is to offer new ways of looking at and thinking about literary texts.
Guidelines for Tagging Items
Item tags should be singular in form (weapon, ship, etc.) and add another level of description than is offered by the collection that each item is located. Capitalize all tags that are based on proper nouns. Tags do not have to be reflective of the collections that individual items are located. Please reference the Browse Items by Tags when creating tags.
File or Image Citation
Found Internet images are documented with a website title (if known) and the image URL. (Example: Ashley’s Cool Blog: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AY9fAAmMTmc/T7Sm7Qi9gwI/AAAAAAAAAWo/B1B11rO2bYU/s1600/PetitPrince.jpg)
Original artwork submitted to the MFLA is documented with the artist’s name, image title, and date created. (Example: Zirbel, Drew. Black Cat. 26 November 2013.)
Rights Statement
Entries in the MFLA represent fictional objects from works of literature. The material offered by The MFLA is intended for educational purposes only and is a not-for-profit project.
The digital objects submitted by contributors and editors are original to the MFLA and are not limited to user created content. MFLA digital objects can include found images and/or text with appropriate citation and/or credit to the source.
If you feel that your rights have been infringed upon, please contact us immediately. We will work with you to resolve the issue to the best of our abilities.
Please feel free to distribute, share or adapt work from the project as long as you credit The Museum of Fictional Literary Artifacts and make the work freely available and non-commercially.
Parts of the Museum include found materials, please respect the terms of the original source materials and provide credit to those sources.
To identify the Museum as the source of information that you are using in a paper, article, book, or website please include the complete title of the Museum, its URL, and the date you accessed it, along with the other relevant documentation.
Submissions
We invite users to submit artifacts. Please see our submission form (beta) for more specific details.
- MFLA Editors maintain control over item-level content and can make changes to items, when appropriate.
- Item descriptions must be original. Please do not submit material copied directly from another source.
- Submitted image files must be either original artwork or available as part of the creative commons with source URL and citation information. The MFLA does not seek permission to display images or artwork and considers any found images used as part of the project to participate in the act of digital curation.
Future Plans
Because the editors recognize that narrative exists in various forms--not just in literary texts--we hope to expand the collection to include: plays, films, movies, games and other forms of emerging media.
Project Team
Stacey Berry, project co-director, is an Assistant Professor of English for New Media at Dakota State University. Since 2013, she has been working to develop the Museum with the students in her courses specializing in curation and digital collection building.
John Nelson, project co-director, is a Professor of English for New Media at Dakota State University. He proposed the original site concept and provides editorial and project development guidance.
Contributing Editors
Fall 2014, English 351: Digital Collection and Curation
Laura Bieber, Project CoordinatorLaina Darger
Dustin Drew, Project Coordinator
Dillon Dwyer, Project Coordinator
Courtney Eley
Jesse Fortune
Ashley Geditz, Project Coordinator
Michaela Johnson
Jared Lampe
Paige Lampe
Mary Metzger, Project Coordinator
Katherine Miller
Laura Otteson
Ashley Rieger, Senior Editor
Sarah Sproul
Brittany Vlaminck
Dylan Winthers, Project Coordinator
Fall 2013, English 351: Computers, Writing and Literature
Alysia Derry-Chavez
BryAnna Hoffer
Ashley Larson
Drew Zirbel