Acquisition News
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The Austin American-Statesman Austin American-Statesman reporter Matthew Odam reports on the Ransom Center's acquisition of the Tom Smith archive. Odam specifically highlights Smith's work with seminal 1980s films Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back and E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. Ransom Center Curator of Film Steve Wilson is quoted on the importance of Smith's collection for scholars and students. The article also quotes Tom Smith, who explains the nature of his collection and his decision to donate it to the Ransom Center. |
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The New Republic Writer Timothy Noah of The New Republic reports on the influence of reporter Mike Wallace. The piece commemorates the death of a great American reporter and highlights Wallace's ability to ask hard questions and receive hearty, interesting answers from American celebrities. The article features quotes from several of Wallace's most famous celebrity interviews. |
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The New Yorker T.C. Boyle writes in this post for The New Yorker about his aversion for clutter and his subsequent decision to place his archive at the Ransom Center. The article begins with Boyle's analysis of the decision to say goodbye to his archive, and he then describes his experience at the Ransom Center in March. Boyle recalls seeing collection materials related to Evelyn Waugh, Thomas Pynchon, and Jorge Luis Borges. |
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Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times reporter Carolyn Kellogg writes about T. C. Boyle's decision to have his writing materials stored at the Ransom Center. She explains his desire to keep his manuscripts safe, as well as Boyle's deep fascination with the manuscript boxes. Ransom Center Assistant Director of Acquisitions and Administration Megan Barnard is quoted on the cleanliness of Boyle's archive and the state of acquisitions since the advent of computers. The article focuses on Boyle's relationship to his archive, the history and acquisition activity of the Ransom Center, and the value of author manuscripts. |
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The Austin Chronicle Richard Wittaker, writer for the Austin Chronicle, reports on the Ransom Center's acquisition of visual effects guru Tom Smith: "The [Center] has acquired 22 boxes from Smith, who headed up George Lucas' industry-shaking Industrial Light and Magic from 1980 to 1986." The article briefly sketches highlights of Smith's career including his work on the sets of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, and E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. The article focuses on the interest of the acquisition to film scholars, and quotes Ransom Center Curator of Film Steve Wilson. |
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Chronicle of Higher Education The Chronicle of Higher Education writer Jean Tamarin reports on the Ransom Center's acquisition of notable film director Nicholas Ray: "The Ransom Center has acquired 35 years' worth of Ray's annotated scripts, video recordings, storyboards, photographs, journals, and notes, which give a firsthand account of his methods and ideas." The article features a brief sketch of Nicholas Ray's work, best known for his 1950's movies Johnny Guitar (1954) and Rebel Without a Cause (1955), comments on his personal and professional lives, and quotes excerpts of Ray's notes from that period found in the Ransom Center's archive. |
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Mail & Guardian Online The Associated Press reported on the Ransom Center's acquisition of Nobel Prize-winning writer J. M. Coetzee's archive: "The collection, purchased using private grants and university money, includes 155 boxes of manuscripts, notebooks, essays, speeches and letters to his publishers dating back to 1956...The collection will give scholars an intimate view of how he developed characters and story lines in his novels as well as conversations with agents and publishers." The article focuses on Coetzee's literary achievements, his connection to The University of Texas at Austin, and his collection as a noteworthy addition to the growing body of Nobel laureates represented in the Ransom Center's archive. |
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The New York Times New York Times reporter Patricia Cohen writes about the Ransom Center's recent acquisition of Commentary magazine's archive: "The archive, which spans 1945 to 1995, includes letters by and to Bernard Malamud, Norman Mailer, Amos Oz, Elie Wiesel and Isaac Bashevis Singer, as well as the revisions of essays written for the magazine by George Orwell, Pearl S. Buck and Jean-Paul Sartre." The article highlights the significance of this acquisition as a notable addition to the Ransom Center's growing collection of materials from Jewish-American authors. |
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Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times writer Susan King covers the Ransom Center's acquisition of the archives of director Nicholas Ray. King explains the significance of Nicholas Ray's life and work as well as the significance of the acquisition for The Center. |
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The Chronicle of Higher Education The Chronicle of Higher Education reporter Jennifer Howard writes about Austin native Bruce Sterling donating his archive to the Ransom Center. Howard interviews Sterling about the cyberpunk movement and about the archive materials, including manuscripts of Sterling's fiction. The article quotes Richard W. Oram, Associate Director and Hobby Foundation Librarian at the Ransom Center, that the cyberpunk movement "was really almost born in Austin, so it's good that the stuff is coming here." |
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Aperture Aperture reports on the significance of archives housing press photos in our current digital age. The article discusses the Ransom Center's housing of the Magnum Photos collection, acquired by MSD Capital L.P. early last year. The article quotes the New York Times calling the archive a "collective photobank of modern culture." |
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Newsweek Newsweek covers the Ransom Center's David Foster Wallace collection, which contains over 20,000 of Wallace's papers and books, after it was opened for research in September 2010: "To the casual fan as well as the devotee, then, this archive offers a chance to take a sort of disembodied, intro-to-literature class from Wallace. For a man who regarded the written word as synonymous with nourishment, this is no small promise of intimacy." The article highlights a short story Wallace wrote when he was nine years old, teaching materials from classes he taught at Pomona College, drafts of Infinite Jest, and research notes for The Pale King, his unfinished novel set for publication next spring. The article links to a slideshow featuring items from the collection. |
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The New York Times New York Times reporter Dave Itzkoff writes about the Ransom Center's acquisition of Spalding Gray's archives. Itzkoff quotes Helen Adair, Associate Curator of performing arts at the Ransom Center, about Gray's editing process using taped recordings of his performances. |
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The New York Times New York Times reporter Patricia Cohen covers the Ransom Center's acquisition of David Foster Wallace's papers, including handwritten notes for Infinite Jest. |
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The New York Times Arts Beat blogger Dave Itzkoff writes about screenwriter Paul Schrader donating his archive to the Ransom Center. Itzkoff interviews Schrader about his outlining process and explores the outline for the film Raging Bull (1980). |
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NPR NPR's All Things Considered reported on the Ransom Center's housing of the Magnum Photos collection: "perhaps the most monumental acquisition in photo history." According to the report, "Magnum's photography is often described in one word, iconic: that National Geographic cover of the Afghan girl with bright green eyes; James Dean walking through a rainy Times Square, hands thrust in his pockets; Martin Luther King sweating as he delivers his 'I Have a Dream' speech; D-Day landings, Marilyn Monroe, the Civil Rights Movement; photos by Cartier-Bresson, Eve Arnold, Elliott Erwitt." |
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The New York Times The New York Times covers the Ransom Center's housing of the Magnum Photos cooperative's collection: "It is one of the most important photography archives of the 20th century, consisting of more than 180,000 images known as press prints, the kind of prints once made by the collective to circulate to magazines and newspapers." The article quotes Ransom Center Director Thomas F. Staley as saying, "It catches so many of the world's great photojournalists in one fell swoop. These were the best of the best in their field. We want to make it a research collection. We want to bring scholars in to work in it, time and time again." |
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Associated Press The Associated Press covers the Ransom Center's acquisition of letters written by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis to book publisher Ray Roberts. The report quotes one letter from Jackie O from Oct. 30, 1982: "You are so adorably generous and I am so grateful. The glories of my library are all presents from you." |
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CNN Helen Adair, Ransom Center Associate Curator of Performing Arts, talks about the processing of De Niro's archive at the Ransom Center. Adair says "it took more than two years to do this project. There are more than 300 boxes of his papers and there are well over 1000 boxes of his costumes and props." |
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New York Times: ArtsBeat Blog New York Times entertainment reporter Dave Itzkoff highlights the Ransom Center's Robert De Niro archive in the Times' ArtsBeat blog. |
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International Herald Tribune |
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London Sunday Times |
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Washington Post The Associated Press reports on the opening of the Norman Mailer archive, the largest collection of a single writer at the Ransom Center. Filling more than 1,000 boxes, the Mailer materials range from more than 40,000 pieces of correspondence to unpublished works. |
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USA Today.com The Associated Press reports on the Ransom Center's acquisition of the papers of playwright, writer and film director David Mamet, author of more than 50 plays and 25 screenplays. "Having an archive in the care of the Ransom Center, in the care, if I may, of intelligent and dedicated enthusiasts, fulfilled both the fantasy of the parent, and that of the artist, who now, though absent, might envision a cost-free colloquy with a perfect interlocutor," said Mamet in a statement. Mamet's full statement concerning the acquisition is available. |
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KUT KUT highlights "The Legacy of Watergate: Why it Still Matters," the two panel discussions hosted by the Ransom Center to celebrate the Woodward and Bernstein Watergate papers. "Watergate and Presidential Accountability" included professors from government, law, and public affairs while "Watergate and the Media: Did the System Work?" discussed the role of the media in the Watergate scandal. Links to the audio from each panel discussion are available. |
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American Photo American Photo highlights the significance of photographer Arnold Newman's archive. The article quotes Director Thomas F. Staley as saying, "With this acquisition we add to our collections not only the works and papers of a renowned photographer, but also important, revealing images of many of the 20th century's most celebrated figures in culture, science and politics." |
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BBC A recent article by the BBC detailed actor, producer, director Robert De Niro's donation of his archive to the Ransom Center. "We're all very excited about this archive," said the Center's Director Thomas Staley. "Students and the public are sure going to have fun with it." |
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Rolling Stone Douglas Brinkley's profile of Norman Mailer uses the acquisition as an opportunity to assess the author's legacy. It mentions the recent acquisition of his collection. It also shows Mailer speaking at a university theater and touring the stacks: "'It's like being cremated,' Mailer quipped as he surveyed the rows upon rows of sterile-looking file boxes." It says that Mailer will turn over dozens of screenplays and short stories, an unpublished novel, scrapbooks, family photographs, precious keepsakes" and that his "his Ransom Center papers will now sit alongside those of American literary talents such as Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams and Don DeLillo." |
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The New York Times The New York Times Arts section covers the Ransom Center's acquisition of author Norman Mailer's life work. The acquisition consists of 20,000 pounds of materials associated with every one of Mailer's literary projects. Mailer said his decision to send his life's work to the Center "...grew out of the fact that the Ransom Center at The University of Texas has one of the finest, if not the finest, collections of American literary archives in the world." |
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Austin American-Statesman Book critic Jeff Salamon previews an upcoming DeLillo lecture by exploring the author's recently acquired collection — "125 boxes of rough drafts, correspondence, research materials, reviews, ephemera and more." DeLillo quips that, since unloading his papers on the Ransom Center, "I've got a little more space that's no longer taken up by those boxes. They were good insulation. The house is colder now." Salomon digs into the collection itself to put together an annotation of the first page of 1985's White Noise. He drops some of the other titles considered for the novel, like Panasonic and Psychic Data, and traces the evolution of a single phrase, from its rough beginning ("vague and somewhat softer men") to a finished polish scarcely resembling the original ("content to measure out the time"). |
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NBC Nightly News NBC reports the public opening of the Woodward and Bernstein Watergate Papers at the Harry Ransom Center. Woodward and Bernstein's notes reveal how much of President Nixon's own party contributed to unraveling the affair. "The Republican Party came together, recognized what this president had done, and was really responsible for him leaving office," says Bernstein. The piece noted that the archives would continue to grow as important sources, such as Deep Throat, become revealed. |
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C-SPAN To celebrate the opening of the Woodward and Bernstein Watergate Papers, top scholars and journalists participated in the "Legacy of Watergate" symposium. Speakers such as Richard Ben-Veniste, Stanley Kutler, Richard Reeves, and John Taylor discussed the famous scandal uncovered by Woodward and Bernstein, along with other surrounding issues. The event was organized into two panels, "Watergate, Nixon, and the Presidency" and "Watergate, the Press, and the First Amendment." |
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Associated Press The article announces the acquisition and mentions some of Adler's most famous students: Marlon Brando, Robert DeNiro, Martin Sheen, Harvey Keitel, Melanie Griffith, and Warren Beatty. It says the collection includes "correspondence, manuscripts, video and audio tapes, photographs and other materials." Director Thomas F. Staley weighs in: "The Adler archive is a deep and rich source for the study of 20th-century American theater. This archive is a significant acquisition." |
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Washington Post The story focuses on the financial magnitude of the acquisition — "one of the largest such purchases in American history" — and says "it surprised some academic and archives directors, who could not cite a comparable price paid to a living author for written materials." Explains Director Thomas F. Staley: "We were offered a fair price, and we felt this was the range... This is a part of history." The piece reports that Woodward and Bernstein agreed to participate in symposia and fund a "$500,000 endowment at the university for the study of Watergate, journalistic ethics, and the archive itself." |
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