HomeProject Aims and ScopeGuide to the Manuscript Finding Aids

Guide to the Manuscript Finding Aids

Identifying items for cataloguing and digitisation necessitated a thoroughgoing audit of 172 archival boxes. Crucial to aid in this task, it is important to know that there are two manuscript finding aids for The University of Queensland's Richard Sylvan Papers in circulation. The original 102-page version of the finding aid was drafted by Sylvan's literary executor and colleague, Nicholas Griffin, in November and December 1996 ("the Griffin version"). The Griffin finding aid catalogues the contents of Boxes 1 to 158 according to each folder's physical location across three sites—Como, Lake George, and the Australian National University—at the time of Richard Sylvan's death. The Griffin version is circulating, but is not in the public domain. A second, revised and expanded, version was produced by the Fryer Library staff to adhere to The University of Queensland's Library and Archives Services conventions, as well as incorporate a later donation of material confined to Boxes 159 to 172. This "Fryer version" is freely-available online and was last updated on March 2, 2015, standing at 139 pages. 

To enliven my archival research in the Richard Sylvan Papers, I am publishing a dynamic record of my findings into the nuclear holdings, such that the data changes asynchronously over time as new information and material becomes available. All line items are therefore tagged with both creation and modified dates (in the far-right columns), so the archival research process can be seen unfolding in real time: 

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