From Janis: “Extremely happy about this!”

Multiple Grammy Award winning recording artist, songwriter and musician Janis Ian has donated her entire archives, along with her father’s 1937 Martin D-19, to Berea College’s Special Collections and Archives at Hutchins Library, where they will be made available for viewing and study in the future.

Visitors to the Berea College Special Collections and Archives will be able to view Ian’s correspondence with other musical artists, famous friends and collaborators, while flipping through song notebooks, diaries and a journal that includes Ian’s first poem, written at age 10.

Not only will fans around the globe be able to view memorabilia and materials from her decades-long career; they’ll be able to support efforts to preserve, catalog, digitize and display the priceless items at Berea and eventually in an online archive. Ian and Berea College are jointly establishing a fund to preserve the legacy of her career in perpetuity.

While many artists have received significant amounts of money for turning over their archives, The Janis Ian Archives are entirely different – Ian’s belief in Berea College is so strong that she has donated all materials without compensation. Her only stipulation is that records remain open to the public, not just academic researchers. To learn more about the Janis Ian Archives Fund or to donate, visit the Berea College website.

Read the entire announcement.