Skywalker Ranch Research Library, from Pininterest.
This November, I spent a week-and-a-half researching at Rancho Obi-Wan and at Skywalker Ranch’s archives, gathering rare and hard-to-find information for what I am now calling The Star Wars Historical Sourcebook, which focuses on the years 1971 to 1990. This time I catalogued variants to Star Wars novelizations, thanks to the generosity of Steve Sansweet and his vast, comprehensive library.
Here I am at Rancho Obi-Wan from July 2013, though I worked at the same space this year. Photo by ROW manager Anne Neumann:
I also obtained copies of press clippings from Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Netherlands and the United Kingdom covering the years 1977 to 1980. Some of the clippings were lacking page numbers, so I requested the aid of various national libraries throughout the world. These are the generous people who have helped me lately, and I sincerely thank them. Their help ensures that the Historical Sourcebook will be as complete as it can possibly be:
National Library of Australia: Scotia Ashley, Leisa Fox, Julie Beadel, Colleen Romano, Tessa Debeljakovic, Sue Chan, Ralph Sanderson, Danelle Edmondson, Shannon Sutton.
Special thanks to Susan Batho and Bill Hupe who retrieved a copious amount of articles for me from the NLA, years ago. Susan’s fanzine collection is stored at the NLA and is described here.
The British Library: Jamie Maxwell, Alice Dowhyj
Austria — Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Information Services: Mag. Franz Halas, Mag. Wilma Buchinger
Belgium — Koninklijke Bibliotheek van België – Bibliothèque royale de Belgique: Lennart Vandamme, Véronique Wese
Denmark — State And University Library: Jesper Boserup Thestrup
National Library of Scotland: Lynsey Halliday
And in the United States:
Glendale, California Public Library: Keith Kesler
Skywalker Ranch Research Library: Jo Donaldson
Rancho Obi-Wan: Steve Sansweet, Anne Neumann, Pete Vilmur
These are but a few of the many kind people who have helped provide information for my annotated bibliography, and their help will be acknowledged.
At this point, I have finished documenting Star Wars press coverage from 1971 to 1976, with about 90 percent coverage from 1977 to 1990 inclusive. Most of these articles are already in my collection; I simply have to catalog them. More progress reports will be forthcoming as things . . . progress.
