“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The collection will include our family trees; my father’s journals and photographs; Jane’s and my own grade-school, high-school, college, and family data; our youthful creative efforts in writing and painting; the comic books and other commercial artwork I produced; our early published and unpublished short stories; my original notes for the sessions; session transcripts, whether published or unpublished, “regular,” private, or from ESP class; tapes, including those made in class of Jane speaking for Seth and/or singing in Sumari; our notes, dream records, journals, and manuscripts; our sketches and paintings; Jane’s extensive poetry; our business correspondence; books, contracts, and files; newsletters about the Seth material, published in the United States and abroad (independently of Jane and me); the greater number of letters from readers—in short, a mass of material showing how our separate beginnings flowed together and resulted in the production of a joint lifework.

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.