Inventing Hollywood: Preserving and Providing Access to the Papers of Renegade Genius Howard Hughes

FAIN: PW-269316-20

University of Nevada, Las Vegas (Las Vegas, NV 89154-9900)
Cynthia Shein (Project Director: July 2019 to December 2021)
Heather Addison (Project Director: December 2021 to September 2023)

The arrangement and description of nearly 400 linear feet documenting Howard Hughes’ film career dating roughly from the 1920s to the 1970s.

The Tony Stark of his era. That is perhaps the most concise description of Howard Robard Hughes (1905-1976), arguably one of the twentieth century’s most significant visionaries. A transformative figure in aviation, business, and the history of Hollywood, Hughes established strong ties to southern Nevada during the latter half of his life, and donated his company records to the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV). The Howard Hughes Motion Picture Papers span nearly half a century and include an impressive range of heterogeneous and distinctive materials related to the art, technology, economics, and social impact of American cinema. UNLV is proposing a cross-domain Implementation project that will leverage the subject expertise of the Department of Film and the technical expertise of the University Libraries Special Collections and Archives to increase the longevity of the materials and make them known and available to the public.

Associated Products

Adapting for Distance: A Perspective on Team-based Archival Processing during a Pandemic (Article)
Title: Adapting for Distance: A Perspective on Team-based Archival Processing during a Pandemic
Author: Sarah Jones
Author: Ryan DiPaolo
Abstract: For decades, team processing has been an effective method of tackling extensive collections that would consume a single processor's time. The effectiveness of team processing was challenged in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic forced the archival profession to reexamine long-standing methods of shared work. While some aspects of processing and descriptive work easily shift to remote work, other aspects of processing remain steadfastly physical. This article examines a team processing project at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Special Collections and Archives to process a major collection previously held by the university's Film Department that began in summer of 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors share their experience adapting physical processes to ever-changing health and safety guidelines and discuss what changes are worth retaining and which processes presented the biggest challenges to pandemic protocols.
Year: 2023
Primary URL: https://meridian.allenpress.com/american-archivist/article/86/1/207/493973/Adapting-for-Distance-A-Perspective-on-Team-based
Access Model: Subscription only
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: The American Archivist
Publisher: Allen Press for the Society of American Archivists

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