“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Even though making our wills led us to think of our deaths, in ordinary terms, still that making implies both order and things accomplished during our lifetimes. We have achieved a situation beneficial to all—for Jane’s will and my own each declares that upon the death of the survivor of the two of us, our estate is to be donated to the Manuscripts and Archives division of Yale University Library, in New Haven, Connecticut. Our physical effects, even including the hill house and the car, are few. But our creative work is everything, and so it, and whatever pertains to it, go to a place where all will be preserved and protected, yet made available for study by researchers and lay people alike as it is transmitted there.

At first we thought of keeping the collection closed until after our deaths, as donors usually request to be done, but we’ve decided to make everything accessible as soon as we can, both for scholarship and for study by the public. To make this possible, we’ll be transferring copies of many of our papers and tapes to the library while keeping the originals with us to work with during our lifetimes. This decision is especially apropos where we have but one copy of the material in question: We like knowing that “security copies” will be on file elsewhere—as with Jane’s journals, for example, and many of my own notes.

To make the copies I plan to install equipment here in the house, so that I can work at the job whenever I have a minute. The task will take lots of time—perhaps several years—and I may have to hire help; it will cost us something to copy the many thousands of papers for the library. Others are to duplicate tapes and photographs for us.

Jane’s editor, Tam Mossman, who graduated from Yale, helped us contact officials at Sterling Memorial a year ago (in December 1978). Jane and I completed arrangements after that, when those at the library explained how our collection would complement others already there. An archivist from Manuscripts and Archives has visited us to get a rough idea of the amount of material we have to offer. We don’t know when our work will actually be ready for study: First we must get it to the library, and then the staff must see to its processing—which will be quite a project in itself. Jane and I are most pleased that the Seth material and everything connected with it are to be preserved.