The Bob Dylan Archive at The University of Oklahoma

"I like Allen Ginsberg and not Bob Dylan" wrote a reader a while back on our Facebook page, and another wrote accurately and swiftly back, "They're joined at the hip."

Allen loved.. no, Allen revered Bob Dylan 

We announced a few weeks back the immanent sale, (or, right now, proposed sale, University librarians, please note), of the "Holy Grail of Archives" - the Ed Sanders Archive, 

but that, monumentous as it is, fades in comparison to the news announced today
 (in an exclusive to the New York Times) -  

the sale to the University of Oklahoma  of The Bob Dylan Archive

Ben Sisario's extensive article for The New York Times is here

"The Bob Dylan Archive has been acquired by the George Kaiser Family Foundation", (the same Foundation that secured the Woody Guthrie Archives), and the University of Tulsa and will be permanently housed in Tulsa, under the stewardship of TU's Helmerich Center for American Research…"..The archive comprises "more than 6,000 items spanning nearly 60 years…decades of never-before-seen handwritten manuscripts, notebooks and correspondence, films, videos, photographs and artwork, memorabilia and ephemera, personal documents and effects, unreleased studio and concert recordings, musical instruments and many other items…Nearly 1,000 items from The Bob Dylan Archive have already been brought to the Hardesty Archival Center inside the Helmerich Center…where they are being digitized and preserved by a digital curation team for eventual public exhibition and academic access. The process of physically acquiring the complete archive will span two years, as the individual components are gathered from their numerous locations, inventoried and carefully shipped to Tulsa."

Dylan himself is quoted in the official announcement: "I'm glad that my archives, which have been collected all these years have finally found a home and are to be included with the works of Woody Guthrie and especially alongside all the valuable artifacts from the Native America Nations. To me, it makes a lot of sense, and it's a great honor"

                      [Bob Dylan's notebooks -  photograph by Erik Campos - Courtesy of the University of Tulsa]