The papers of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gary Snyder will be made available online and in the University of California, Davis, General Library, thanks to an $86,800 award from the federal government through the California State Library.

The Department of Special Collections in UC Davis' library will use the money from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services, Library Services and Technology Act, to process the papers for scholarly use and to make the collection accessible to the public through the Online Archive of California Web site http://www.oac.cdlib.org/.

Snyder, UC Davis professor emeritus of English affiliated with the Beat Generation, has published more than 18 books of poetry and prose, including "Turtle Island," which won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1975. His collection consists of more than 180 linear shelf feet of published and unpublished works, manuscripts, personal and business correspondence, and photographs. Included are letters from Snyder's poet friends in the Beat Generation such as Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and Philip Whalen.

Snyder was awarded the California State Library Gold Medal for Excellence in the Humanities and Science in 2001. "No Nature," a volume of selected poems, was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1992. Snyder has been a Guggenheim Fellow and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

As a professor on the English faculty (1986-2002), Snyder was instrumental in starting the Nature and Culture Program, which allows students to major in studies that combine science with the humanities.

The collection should be available to researchers by November, according to Daryl Morrison, head of special collections at the UC Davis library.