By QQ Staff
“The Qwertyverse” is a new project collaboration that we are excited for and proud of. A Collaboration between University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee College of Letters and Science, UWM Libraries, and QWERTYFEST MKE, this project is directed by UWM Professor of English Jason Puskar and consists of mapping, archiving, and collecting oral history related to the rich legacy of the QWERTY keyboard, from the earliest days to the present, from the original inventors to modern users, and from Kenosha to Calcutta. From The Qwertyverse site: "This site gathers, commemorates and shares the history of how modern people write, which is to say, by typing on a certain kind of keyboard invented in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1873. The history of the QWERTY keyboard is well known to a modest number of historians, curators and collectors, but too little known by the billions of people world-wide who still depend on it to this day. There are few other artifacts of the Victorian era still in use in something close their original form, and none used so widely. But every history starts with the recognition that it didn't have to be this way. Things could have come out differently, and if they had, we might be writing on entirely different kinds of machines. There was nothing natural or inevitable about QWERTY, no single reason why it took the form it did, or and no easy explanation for why it has flourished for so long. This archive of QWERTY materials includes a wide range of historical artifacts and contemporary reflections, ranging from digitized documents from the original inventors to oral histories with modern typists. It also maps locations in Milwaukee where the inventors lived and worked, and one day we hope it will map the spread of QWERTY around the globe. This archive began as a collaborative project in a graduate seminar in the Department of English of the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, English 885: Humanities for the Public Good. The students and the instructor worked together to shape the project, create and gather materials, interpret some of them, and pass it on to others in the future. This is a living archive that we hope will grow and develop over the years ahead. We welcome your suggestions, items for inclusion, or ideas for improvement." You can enter The Qwertyverse here: web.uwm.edu/ls-omeka/s/qwerty Visit us at QWERTYFEST MKE Sunday, June 23, 3-4:30pm, in the Rare Books Room on the second floor of Central Library, where project collaborators will show archived items, locations mapped so far, and answer questions about the project. Free event- no registration required. This article originally appeared in QWERTY Quarterly #5 See the full QWERTYFEST schedule here: QWERTYFEST 2024 SCHEDULE - QWERTYFEST
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