Update on the progress of our Flash preservation work: We've completed preserving 178 works with Ruffle. Left are 502 more. We'll finish all but the 200 works held in “The Museum of the Essential and Beyond That Collection” in time for Wednesday’s celebration.
Celebrate with us on Wednesday, April 15 from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. PDT as we reflect on 15 years of ELL!
Join us online via Zoom or in person at Washington State University Vancouver in the Marjorie C. Luesebrink Reading Room, VMMC 211A.
To register, please visit: bit.ly/ell15
Only 2 days until #ELL15!
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The event will feature speakers and a virtual tour highlighting the spaces that support our work in born-digital art, literature, and games.
More details below!
#BornDigital #DigitalHumanities #DigitalPreservation #ElectronicLiteratureLab
Rows of vintage Macintosh computers line wall-mounted shelves beside old software boxes and equipment cases in the Electronic Literature Lab’s Restoration Room.
🕹️ The Restoration Room
Home to ELL’s backstock of hardware, software, manuals, and peripherals, the Restoration Room helps us maintain access to born-digital art, literature, and games. For retro computing fans, it’s paradise.
Two women sit in conversation in a dark studio space, with one gesturing as she speaks beside a laptop and tripod-mounted camera during a recorded discussion or event.
🎥 The Studio
Originally a multimedia performance space, The Studio now hosts live Traversals, artists talks, and interviews relating to born-digital art, literature, and games. The space is equipped with sound and video tools, including mixing boards, speakers, microphones, and more!
A woman in a yellow jacket sits at a desktop computer in a room filled with vintage monitors and classic computers, using historical media in the Electronic Literature Lab.
💿 The Luesebrink Reading Room
Named for pioneering artist Marjorie C. Luesebrink (M. D. Coverley), this rare space gives visitors access to born-digital art, literature, and games through historical media on our lab computers.
A woman in a yellow jacket smiles while working at a round table with a sticker-covered laptop and archival materials, as a man in the background reaches for labeled storage boxes on wall shelves.
💾 The Archives Room
Physical archives associated with The NEXT and the Electronic Literature Organization are held in this room. Digitizing as well as cataloging materials take place in this space. Archives include artists’ notebooks and personal papers but also performance props and ephemera.
The Electronic Literature Lab is shaped by four spaces, each serving a different role in the work we do. In this thread, we’re taking you through each one! #ELL15 #ElectronicLiterature #ELitLab #BornDigital #DigitalPreservation #DigitalHumanities
A person with long curly hair and glasses sits at a desk working at a dual-monitor computer setup in an office or lab space. A whiteboard covered with sketches and notes fills the background, while code and software windows are visible on the screens. A keyboard, mouse, and drawing tablet rest on the desk, suggesting a technical or creative workflow.
ruffle logo. Yellow text on a blue background.
With the demise of Conifer, ELL has steadily been moving as many of the Flash works held at The NEXT into Ruffle. This article points out the irony of this situation and provides detail about the process we are following to do it.
View our article here: tr.ee/dqU1sN
The Macintosh Classic (1991), running System Software 7, currently holds Afternoon, a story by Michael Joyce, a classic of electronic literature first published by Eastgate Systems in 1987 on 3.5-inch floppy disk. What do we gain by encountering born-digital literature on its original hardware? #ELL
Celebrate 15 years of the Electronic Literature Lab with us! 💾
Join us for speakers and a virtual tour, live on Zoom or in person on the WSU Vancouver campus in the ELL Marjorie C. Luesebrink Reading Room (VMMC 211A), April 15, 2026, 10 a.m.–12 p.m. PDT.
Register here: bit.ly/ell15
#ELL15
The series focuses heavily on floppy disks and CD-ROMs from the late 1980s and onwards, many of them from Eastgate Systems Inc.
Have you attended one of our live traversals?
The process was pioneered by Dene Grigar and Stuart Moulthrop.
The Rebooting Electronic Literature is an open-source book series that documents works in The Dene Grigar Collection.
A traversal is when an author and reader perform the work on the hardware and with the software on which the work was originally experienced. Documenting these walkthroughs helps capture the experience of the work, making it possible for anyone to engage with it even without the original technology.
Part reading, part performance, part software user experience.💾
Traversals captures the many layers of engaging with born-digital work. They are a key part of the preservation work we do in the lab.
