My wife and I were asked by the University of Florida, Special Collections Department, to help re-organize the inventory of the Collection during April to May, 2007. It was a time-consuming, but very rewarding task. We are continuing the effort since the original time frame was not enough. We had to deal with 472 boxes, including 53 boxes of photographs, and about 50 boxes of slides.
The inventory will be available through a University of Florida website. As soon it is completed a link will be provided from this page. Estimated time for completion of the re-organization is June, 2009.
The Collection is a great resource for JDM fans. There are 79 linear feet of JDM manuscripts , letters, tv and film deals, photos, personal correspondence, ephemera, and much more. It is perhaps the most comprehensive body of materials of a mystery author in the U.S.
In the future we hope to raise funds for digitizing some of the Collection so that researchers will have instant access.
Note:
I need to add another reference to the inventory work of the late Walter Shine, for without his painstaking labors in the the Collection we would have had more of a problem identifying some materials. In addition, thanks to Maynard and Liliana MacDonald who first put the photos into labeled envelopes and brought them to the University after the death of Dorothy MacDonald in 1989.