In the mid 1950s, Selznick made the decision to store his voluminous inactive files at the Bekins Storage Company. Periodically thereafter, the files were boxed for shipment in the order they were removed from the file cabinets, department by department, and an inventory list was maintained.
This inventory list (hereafter referred to as the Bekins list) was used during cataloging to reconstruct the physical order in which the files were retired. A copy of the Bekins storage list is available to researchers. This list can aid the understanding of the current physical arrangement of the materials, and at times provide additional information about the materials.
The processed boxes and folders were described in 14,498 catalog records. Series and file group names were added to each of these records in order to facilitate access to the original departmental or creator groupings of the materials. Thus, while the physical arrangement of the collection does not necessarily always reflect the intellectual arrangement by series, the catalog records provide the means to search for related materials that are physically scattered and view them in a selected order.
The catalog records were previously available in the University's online library catalog, UTCAT or UTNetCat, the World Wide Web version of UTCAT. The records are now available in a separate Selznick Collection Database. The data remains the same and is searchable by any field or combination of fields. Search results may then be sorted by any of the fields. The information contained in a typical record is as follows:
Call number: 184 11, the current box number followed by the relevant folder number.
Series: ADMINISTRATIVE: Name of series.
File creator: SELZNICK, DAVID O., 1902-1965. Person within the organization who created and/or maintained the records described in the title.
File title & description: PRODUCTION FILES, type of material contained in the box; 1936 - 1942, date span for this box and related files or boxes; GONE WITH THE WIND FIRE SEQUENCE, file name or description of contents of the specific folder.
File year/span: 1939, date specific to this file.
BK number: BK359, the box number in which the file was originally stored. BK codes used include:
BK# -- The main studio inventory of retired files (Bekins list). BK* indicates that the Bekins number is unknown.
LN# -- Files shipped from the London office.
FC# -- Represents files active at the time of Selznick's death and shipped in file cabinets for storage at Bekins. Also includes files not inventoried on the main Bekins list (e.g., New York files, legal files).
DN -- Additions to the archive after 1981, the year the bulk of the material was received by the Ransom Center.
| David O. Selznick Collection Finding Aid | |||||||||
| Title Page | Biographical Sketch | Scope and Contents | Organization and Access | Series Outline | Series Descriptions | Companies and Personnel List | Films Chronological List | Films Alphabetical List | Films Credits List |
Reference queries to: reference@hrc.utexas.edu
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