Administrative Information
Acquisition Information
The Reader's Collection of Library of Congress Copyright Office Drama Deposits was transferred to the Manuscript Division from the general collections of the Library of Congress in 1992, where its scripts had gathered between 1870 and 1940 after readers requested them from the Copyright Office. They were all classed PS635.Z99 (unpublished American plays) and were often bound, being cataloged as books. Some of the transferred plays were then integrated into cartons of similar scripts awaiting microfilming. The remainder, arriving in the Manuscript Division too late for microfilming in sequence, are here preserved. Approximately thirty other early Copyright Deposit unpublished plays were found in storage by summer interns, 2005-2010. These were added to the Reader's Collection because their registration years were outside of the parameters of the ongoing microfilm project.
Processing History
The Reader's Collection was processed in 2004 by Karen Linn Femia with the assistance of Chanté Wilson Flowers. The finding aid was revised in 2011 by Alice L. Birney. The finding aid was updated in 2024 by Maria Farmer as part of a division-wide remediation project by the Inclusive Description Working Group.
Related Material
This collection precedes or comprises a small part of the major group of Copyright Deposit Dramas (some 250,000 scripts) registered from 1901 to 1977, which are preserved in the Manuscript Division primarily in microfilm format. Of the larger collection, some are retained in paper form in a Selected Copyright Deposit Dramas Collection and listed in registration order.
Preferred Citation
Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: Container number, Reader's Collection of Library of Congress Copyright Office Drama Deposits, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.