ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION Title Collection Number Introduction and Reference Information Introduction This guide represents a work-in-progress. The original draft was completed by Project Archivist Peggy L. McMullen in September, 1988, finishing a complex, challenging, and difficult project begun by Arthur F. Sniffin in the fall of 1985. Throughout this period of arranging and describing elusive and sometimes indecipherable documents, we were able to draw on the expertise of Dr. Narayan Hegde. First as a graduate student, and subsequently as a consulting scholar, he had worked intermittently with the collection from its arrival at Stony Brook's Center for Contemporary Arts and Letters in 1975. Other graduate students who worked on the initial indexing of the collection in the mid-1970s were Linda Bauer, Terry Lichtenstein, and Jerry Schecter. Special Collections Department staff started planning for the housing and processing of the Yeats Collection in 1983. I am indebted to Rose C. Brown and Susan C. Rose for their continuing contributions to the overall planning, organizing, and housing of the collection, and for providing various kinds of support during the project. Timothy D. Cary and Lee R. Hiltzik also worked on many aspects of planning and implementing the project. Subsequently, Diane E. Englot has helped in revising and editing the collection. Arthur F. Sniffin was the first Project Archivist. Additional professional project staff was added in December 1985 with the appointment of Peggy L. McMullen as Assistant to the Project Archivist. Funding for the last year and a half of the project was erratic. Because of this, professional staff was reduced to one, except for a brief three month period when Barbara Kitt Williams joined the project. Arthur Sniffin resigned to accept another appointment in September 1987. Peggy McMullen, who had left in March, 1987, because of budgetary uncertainty, returned in August, 1987, as Librarian/Archivist to oversee the completion of the project. Throughout most of the project, part-time student assistants helped with various processing tasks. Graduate students included Geri Zuckermann and Ellen Gardiner. Undergraduates who worked on the project included Neeta Daryani, Michelle Douchette, Sonia Evelyn, Elizabeth Freeman, Sofia Kafas, Annette King, Sonja Mains, Simon Marchant, Gretchen Vega, and Liza Ziegler. Although the very difficult work of sorting the collection has been completed, several tasks remain. These include additional listings of folder titles and verification of the contents of all folders, especially in the context of name and title authority lists that are being developed. In addition, National Library of Ireland [NLI] numbers are to be added to each entry, as appropriate, which will complete the NLI Index in this guide. Ancillary Materials Box and Folder Descriptions Image Numbering XX 0 XXX Index of Correspondents names of writers and recipients of letters, memoranda, or notes Originals and Copies The collection also includes photocopies of slips and typescript notes used by a number of scholars when consulting the collection in Ireland. These marked the place where the scholar was working or include other information. The collection also includes a at lease one typed transcription of a handwritten transcription by a scholar of an original manuscript by Yeats. Guides The Guide to Bound Volumes, located in three document cases, was prepared by Dr. Narayan Hegde, Dr. David Clarke, and a number of graduate students over a period of years. These pages identify the images in the White Volumes in sequential order by reel and separately by each volume. There are no alphabetical, name, or other indices. Sequential Guide. When the collection was processed under the supervision of Arthur F. Sniffin and Peggy McMullen, 1986-1988, a listing was created by reel and image, indicating the disposition of the individual pages containing the images. This guide is located in two document cases. Relationship between Guides. There is no direct correlation between the White Volumes and the Guide to Bound Volumes, and the Sequential Guide and the collection the way it has been arranged in the boxes. However, at times it has been helpful to use the locations in the White Volumes to track down an image in the collection. NLI Number Notes As NLI numbers sometimes include aggregates of manuscript materials with minimal descriptions or descriptions different from those used in this guide, there is not always a direct relationship between these numbers and the archival arrangement in this collection. For example, NLI 30,254 is located in five different locations in this collection. NLI numbers have been included in this guide to assist researchers. No effort has been made to ascertain that all constituent parts of an NLI number are listed. In addition, an NLI number following an entry in the Box List simply indicates that part or all of that number is reflected in that particular entry. It does not mean that the entry is exclusively described by that number, as it frequently contains much additional material. Facts, Photocopy and Copyright 34 Reels of 16 mm microfilm (0.35 cubic feet), with a total of 79,579 images, that
were processed from 1985-1988. Photocopying is limited to twenty-five (25) images without express permission from: United Agents. Requests for permission to publish any material from the collection should also be addressed to A.P. Watt, Ltd. For permission to publish correspondence, contact Oxford University Press, London. As the collection includes some copies of originals located in other repositories, it may also be necessary to obtain their permission to publish materials. As custodians of the microfilm collection, the Special Collections Department suggests the following citation: Special Collections Department, Stony Brook University. It may be helpful to include the following information with each citation: Subgroup, Series and Subseries identification, and the box, folder and image numbers; e.g, SGI, SE2, SSC [or] I.2.C; Bx.93, f.56; 0900235. AL Autograph Letter Jack Yeats, Jack, 1871-1957 (John Butler Yeats, Jr.) |