The following passage appears in Isaac Asimov’s autobiography around the November 1965 timeframe.

At about this time, Boston University expressed a wish to collect my papers. Dr. Howard Gotlieb, the head of special collections, wrote to ask me for them and I thought he was joking.

To be sure, I had been giving copies of my foreign editions and some of my old manuscripts to the Newton Public Library as a way of getting them out of the house, but that was on my own initiative, and the library was humoring me. I couldn’t quite believe that someone would ask for them.

Gotlieb assured me solemnly that he was serious, and so I dragged out what manuscripts and papers I had, together with some spare copies of various books in various editions, and took them down to the library. I explained that there would be more, but when I took down additional installments there still seemed to be a very small supply of material for someone who had been writing for a quarter of a century.

“Is this all?” asked Gotlieb.

“I’m afraid so.”

“But what have you done with all the rest?”

“Lately, I’ve been giving some of the stuff to the Newton Public Library, but mostly I’ve been burning them.”

Gotlieb turned a pretty shade of mauve. “Burning them?”

“You know, when they crowd up my filing cabinets, and I don’t need them anymore, I get rid of them. They’re just junk.”

I then received an emotional lecture on the value of a writer’s papers to the cause of future research. I found I couldn’t believe it (I still don’t), but Gotlieb was such a decent and gentle guy (plump, round-faced, always smiling) that I didn’t have the heart to argue. I faithfully promised to bring in all material and not burn anything.

It took a while, though, to educate me. At one time when I took in some manuscripts, Gotlieb looked over them and (I can swear) licked his lips. “Holographic corrections!” he said. “How valuable that makes this!”

“What are holographic corrections?” I asked.

“I mean you’ve made corrections in writing.”

I laughed. “That’s nothing. I make many more corrections in first draft.”

“Where’s the first draft?”

“Oh, I tear up each page as I finish with it.”

Gotlieb frowned fearfully. “Didn’t you promise to bring in everything?”

“First drafts, too?” I said, thunderstruck.

Then, on a still later visit, it turned out he wanted the fan mail also. He wanted everything.

“You won’t have room,” I protested.

“We’ll make room,” he answered firmly.

So in all the years since then, I have been periodically flooding the Special Collections Division of Boston University Library with the most appalling collection of manuscripts in first and second draft, with galleys, page proofs, and a copy of every book in every edition; also with a copy of every magazine that contains an article of mine, with correspondence of all kinds, including fan mail, and, in fact, with anything that mentions my name.

All of it has their storage vault under severe internal pressure, and the explosion, when it comes someday, will probably wreck a half-mile stretch of Commonwealth Avenue, but my conscience is clear. I’ve warned them.

For the first few years, everything I handed in was submitted to an official appraiser who, at the end of the year, would send me a detailed and itemized list of everything and included the estimated value of that year’s submissions so I could take an income-tax deduction. The value came to roughly three thousand dollars, which appalled me because I didn’t think any of the items were worth anything at all—but I took the deduction.

When laws were passed forbidding such deductions (thanks to the abuse of those laws by politicians) and I could no longer make them, I was relieved.

— In Joy Still Felt by Isaac Asimov

Do you have any idea how excited I was when I read this?

Of course, I had originally read this way back shortly after it was originally published over 40 years ago, but I don’t think the implications of it sank in at the time.

But when I read it this time, it was different.

So I went to a browser and looked up “boston university asimov collection” and found the web site at Isaac Asimov collection.

Did they perchance have the collection digitized and online at that site? No such luck. Apparently one has to go there in person and browse through the “210 Linear Feet (474 boxes, packages)” collection.

That might very well be enough to get me off my ass and travel to Boston University.

They’ve published a catalog of the contents of the 474 boxes, so I can peruse that in advance and search out just the box or boxes that might have what I’m looking for.

I’ve downloaded the catalog and you can bet I’ll be searching through it. I haven’t been this excited in years.

Did you read what Dr. Asimov said they were collecting? Everything “with correspondence of all kinds, including fan mail, and, in fact, with anything that mentions my name”. And that was starting in 1965.

I didn’t send my fan letter to Dr. Asimov until 1971!

That means that my fan letter is located for eternity in the Boston University Isaac Asimov Collection, where scholars researching the Good Doctor’s papers are apt to find it.

And where I can go and see it and even make a copy of it for myself!

Now all I have to do is figure out in which of those 474 boxes my fan letter might be… 

Addendum: Box 129. Should any researcher get there before I do, check out Box 129. I received a reply from Dr. Asimov in March of 1971, so I must have sent the fan letter in either January or February (I mailed it to West Newton, Massachusetts, because I didn’t realize he had separated from his wife and was then living in NYC. So it would have taken some time for the mail to be forwarded to him). Fan letters for both of those months are in Box 129. You can reach me at this blog. Thank you!