In article <4c4c2df25aGreg.DeleteThis@gctsmt.demon.co.uk>,
Greg Toland <Greg.DeleteThis@gctsmt.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> On a similar vein, I have just paid a visit to the Asimov Archives at
> Boston University. If you have the opportunity to pay them a visit I
> would recommend you do so. I was combining pleasure with pleasure as I
> was on vacation in the Boston area and convinced my wife that me spending
> a day in the library would be good!
>
> I must first of all give my thanks to Sean Noel who helped coordinate my
> visit and to JC who was the archivist assigned to assist me.
>
> If you go I suggest you have a particular topic that you try and research
> - if not there is a danger that you will just waste time jumping between
> the boxes and there are a lot of them - approximately 400!! I spent the
> whole of the day (9:00 - 17:00) there and could have continued for
> another day quite happily.
I agree, a visit to the BU archives is certainly worthwhile for any
Asimov aficionado. The amount of material they have their is mind
boggling. There are 465 boxes of archived material, plus books: more
than 760 U.S. editions, 220 U.K. editions, and 1200 foreign editions. I
have spent more than twenty days there, and I have only looked at a
small fraction of what they have. The staff have always been pleasant
and helpful.
> My planned research in the Archive was:
>
> "Isaac Asimov's Research Methodology for Non-Fiction books, in particular
> reference material for his European Historical Publications"
>
> I wanted to look for what letters/sources he may have used initially and
> for validation. I also wanted to look at proofs for % of change and
> areas of change.
>
> I planned to use "The Shaping Of England" as my focus of research.
>
> I was able to look at the original typed 'onion skins' with 'holographic'
> (hand written changes) by Asimov and then the corrected galley proofs.
> Unfortunately there was not a significant amount of changes and there was
> not much correspondence from schools who may have used the books.
Asimov left very little evidence to document the sources he used for
writing any of his nonfiction. His number one source was his head, and I
don't think he kept any records of what went into his head and when it
went in. Occasionally he made brief references to some of his sources in
the anecdotes preceding his essays; otherwise the only way I can think
of to trace his sources is to find instances where he repeated a mistake
that was made by another author.
Often the corrections he made to his manuscripts consisted mostly of
fixes to the typos and grammatical errors he made as a consequence of
typing 90 words per minute. However, there are a few examples of
manuscripts that were extensively revised. But considering the volume of
his work, they are few and far between.
> I therefore went off topic and started to look at material in the
> archives that related to his visit to England in 1974. That proved
> interesting to me as you can probably tell I am from the UK.
There is a good deal of correspondence in the archives concerning his UK
visit. Once the word got out that he would be visiting England, he
received a flood of requests to speak here or appear there. It looks
like just about every minute of his time spent there was accounted for
in advance. The archives provide a good record of all the planning that
was involved.
> My other browsing found some of Asimov's journals when he was doing
> research and it contained some of his original measurements and notes. I
> found a pencil in the spine of one of the journals and comparing the
> weight and colour of the writing in the journal I think it was the one he
> used for his note-taking.
There are some reports he did on his studies of "Life Jacket Dye
Markers", several notebooks concerning the "Inactivation of Tyrosinase",
some notes for a biochemistry course he taught, and notes from a course
that he took. All in all, pretty dry stuff, but interesting from the
point of view of a museum exhibit.
> I now have a confession - I used the pencil to write some notes in my
> journal of the day so I could 'have' a bit of the graphite he used!!! I
> have also kept the gloves that I used to handle the material so I have
> some original Asimov dust!!!! I was also able to get about 20 sheets
> photocopied that were primarily related to The Shaping of England.
Now you are scaring me a little.
> To complete my research I went to find the house that he was living in
> while writing The Shaping of England. After a lot of searching, and
> fortunately finding a postman on his rounds, I was able to find the house
> in Greenough Street - and yes I did take a photo! I also went to find
> his first house in the Boston area in Somerville.
Sounds like you missed the apartment in Waltham.
> I plan to update my website with more detail of my visit and I will
> possibly include hints for others who might consider visiting.
>
> One thing I did think surprising was that there is no painting or bust of
> Asimov at Boston University. Perhaps it is a sign of the problems he was
> having with the administration for some of the time.
Not surprising, really. Asimov certainly would have nixed such an idea
when he was alive. They have done some Asimov exhibits at the library in
the past, and the fact that they established and have maintained the
archive collection is a greater tribute than any bust or portrait. Any
problems he had with the administration in the past were put aside and
have since been forgotten.
> Hopefully this ramble has been of interest to readers of the Newsgroup
> and makes a pleasant change from the spam we have had of late.
I found it interesting.
One of the most significant problems with the Asimov collection at BU is
that since it is so large it is very time consuming to document in
detail. They have a catalog that has more than 420 pages, but its level
of detail is quite variable. In the early years, there was very little
done to organize the collection, making it more difficult to find
particular items of interest. In later years they did a much better job
of classifying, organizing, and documenting the donations. But their
catalog is only available to researchers while they are visiting the
collection. This makes it more difficult to plan in advance.
Another problem with the catalog is that it was compiled by archivists
who were not thoroughly familiar with Asimov's work, so they had to rely
on information he provided to identify the material. Once consequence of
this is that pieces that were retitled in a revision are often scattered
amongst several archive boxes. In general, that did not happen to book
manuscripts, but it did often happen to nonfiction essays, and sometimes
to fiction pieces.
I have spent a lot of time producing my own version of a catalog that
documents their holdings, but it is a monumental task. Ideally, its the
kind of thing that could be done as a community effort, if there are
others out there who have the ways and means to visit the archives and
examine what they have.
--
Ed Seiler<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
>> Stay informed about: invitation to visit online Asimov exhibit 
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