[looping8]

Can some explain how it is possible that an official archive would have this document and never look at it? The missing script for a never-made movie should attract attention, but nobody cared until this one writer found it? Why?

[fuzz_junket]

I'm doing a master's in library science and archives, currently working a couple of internships processing archives. The answer is archives are big, complex, and time-consuming. One collection I work with is 131 cubic feet of records including papers, floppy disks, and photographic film. It's unprocessed, meaning the archivists haven't had a chance to arrange and describe it, which isn't a wonder considering the size of the collection — and that's only one of many in the backlog.

Even if a collection is processed, because of the volume of information in a given collection archivists typically don't typically describe every document. In a library you can catalogue every book, but that's not possible in an archive. And in an artist's papers, how can you know which document will be important to someone? How can you know what's artistically significant? The time it would take to research the background of every document (Was this script ever made? Is it interesting to anyone?) would be prohibitive.

Add into the mix that archives are chronically underfunded and archivists underpaid. This is coming from the unpaid intern who was asked to process a $33,000 acquisition last year. Fun times.

[loloquwowndueo]

For comparison a regular French-door fridge is about 25 cu ft. So 131 cu ft is equivalent to about 5 fridges’ worth of materials. Not that one would store an archive inside fridges :)

[signalToNose]

131 Cubic Feet = 0.00148380032 Olympic Size Swimming Pool

[loloquwowndueo]

Yeah but how many football fields? ;)

[throw0101d]

Also, how many football pitches?

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_pitch

[gopher_space]

Official archives can mean a few boxes in the basement, and submissions aren't catalogued as thoroughly as you might be expecting.

Do you know which authors have archives at your nearest state school? Is that info even on the internet?

[krisoft]

> Official archives can mean a few boxes in the basement

This is very apt description. In this case it sounds like they have 91 boxes (78 Document boxes, 13 cartons of research files)

Not sure if they are in the basement but the record locations says: Aisle 9A -- Shelves 1-4

> and submissions aren't catalogued as thoroughly as you might be expecting

That is also true in this case. By the sounds of it Frank Herbert boxed up all his papers and donated them to the library. Later on family donated more as they found more.

There is a very high level inventory, such as “Container 7: Maps” Maps of what? Doesn’t say. How many? Doesn’t say. One has to go there physically to find out.

There is also a “Flat file drawer tbd” containing a “Dune Atlas”. Which to be honest sounds very intriquing. And a “Small document box A-204” with “personal items” which is decidedly less so.

Source: http://archives.fullerton.edu/repositories/5/resources/56

[acheron]

> Official archives can mean a few boxes in the basement

“Beware of the leopard”