THE GREGORY BATESON ARCHIVE:
GUIDE/CATALOG

(A Guide to the official Gregory Bateson Archive,
located at the University of California, Santa Cruz)

By Rodney E. Donaldson, Ph.D.

[My Gregory Bateson Archive: A Guide/Catalog (completed in 1987) is a 2,514-page research tool which, in addition to identifying each item in the Archive, contains a detailed biographical chronology, a definitive Bibliography of the Published Work of Gregory Bateson compiled from original sources and superseding all previous Bateson bibliographies, a catalog of the libraries of Gregory Bateson and his geneticist father William Bateson, a complete list of Bateson’s published and unpublished writings arranged chronologically by date of composition (including the Bateson manuscripts represented only in the Library of Congress archive), cross-referencing among the various portions of the Archive to elucidate the contexts of otherwise unidentifiable items, a complete name and word/subject index to the correspondence files (incorporating identification of every potentially obscure reference and allusion in Bateson’s letters), and an essay on the history and arrangement of the Archive. Excerpts from the Guide/Catalog may be found below. I offer these excerpts here in the hope that they may trigger further work on Gregory Bateson’s ideas by scholars and students in the many fields affected by his work. (It is also worth noting that the essay on the history and arrangement of the Archive contains information and advice useful to anyone facing the task of creating an archive.) All of the material which follows dates from 1987.]

INTRODUCTION:
THE GREGORY BATESON ARCHIVE, UCSC

     The Gregory Bateson Archive at The University of California, Santa Cruz, consists of some eighty document-boxes of correspondence, manuscripts, notebooks, transcripts, miscellania, and octopus and cetacean observation records, as well as several additional larger boxes of tape recordings and films. Virtually all of the material in the archive dates from the years 1946-1980.
     There are approximately 350 essays, the manuscript drafts of each of which have been placed in the order of their creation. There are approximately 4,000 letters by Gregory Bateson, amid some 39 document-boxes of correspondence—all of which have been placed in chronological order within each folder as well as provided with a name index and, in the case of Bateson’s own letters, a word/subject index. Care has been taken to identify the full names of all persons mentioned in Bateson’s letters, since this information would not survive the living persons familiar with his life and friends. Every allusion or reference in Bateson’s own letters has also been identified by at least noting the name of the author from whom it derives.
     In addition, there are some 76 notebooks, which have been identified and placed in chronological order. Also organized and cataloged are four document-boxes of octopus and cetacean observation materials, Bateson’s miscellaneous holograph notes and manuscript fragments, some five hundred tape recordings, over sixty Bateson films (mostly dating from after 1947), and various miscellaneous items, including conference and workshop transcripts, marginalia, articles about Bateson, photographs and slides, and supplementary books. Appropriate cross-references have been provided for all parts of the archive. (Also organized and cataloged were two large boxes of papers and personal effects of Gregory’s parents, the geneticist William Bateson and Caroline Beatrice Bateson; these boxes were sent to join William Bateson’s library at the John Innes Institute, Norwich, England.)
     A definitive Bibliography of the Published Work of Gregory Bateson (superseding both the Steps to an Ecology of Mind and American Anthropologist bibliographies) has been compiled from original sources, and a Published Articles File has been created to match the bibliography. A catalog of Bateson’s library has been prepared, as well as steps taken to ensure that his most important annotated and inscribed books joined the archive. Finally, the manuscript material for Bateson’s last three books has been cataloged (along with several uncompleted book manuscripts), and a final Guide/Catalog to the archive has been prepared, including a detailed biographical chronology (made especially meticulous for the years not covered by this archive).
     Throughout, it has been the aim of the archivist to perform what every literary executor and archival repository would wish done with the material entrusted to their care, namely, to order it, to devise means to preserve that order despite use by many persons over a period of years, to identify items which persons without the benefit of many years of study could not otherwise identify, and to distinguish the final form of potentially publishable documents from their various incomplete versions. In short, it is hoped that the work of Bateson scholars and students has been rendered easier at the same time that maximal preservation of the materials has been ensured.
     Bateson’s pre-1946 material may be found in the South Pacific Ethnographic/Margaret Mead Archive of the Library of Congress.
     For further information about the creation of the UCSC collection, see the appendix on the history and arrangement of the archive.

SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE

     The Gregory Bateson Archive at The University of California, Santa Cruz, contains approximately 15,000 documents, 500 tape recordings, and 70 films. Included among the documents are correspondence, book and essay manuscripts, notebooks, octopus and cetacean observation materials, marginalia, articles about Bateson, transcripts of speeches, seminars, and conferences, and miscellaneous other items. With few exceptions, the documents date primarily from 1946 to 1980 (with the bulk of the items dating from 1960 to 1980); the tapes date from 1965 to 1980; and the films date from 1949 to 1964.
     Of the 15,000 documents, approximately 11,000 are letters (roughly 4,000 of them by Bateson). There is a complete set of Bateson’s published articles, as well as a larger file containing manuscript materials for both his published and unpublished articles (approximately 350 articles in all). (It should be noted, however, that this file does not contain copies of the manuscript materials in the Library of Congress archive.) There are book manuscripts for Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity, and Where Angels Fear to Tread, as well as four uncompleted (abandoned) book manuscripts dating from the 1960s. In addition, the Archive contains 76 notebooks (dating from 1943 to 1977), approximately 100 items relating to octopus and cetacea (1961-1967), and some 200 miscellaneous items, including transcripts, booklets, telephone/address files (1964-1980), marginalia, articles and books about Bateson, notes and fragments (1957-1980), and odd-sized items.
     In general, the Archive may be said to contain virtually all surviving Bateson materials dating from the end of the 1940s to the end of his life, the only significant known exception being some correspondence between Bateson and Mead presently in the possession of Mary Catherine Bateson. Materials dating from the period prior to the late 1940s may be found in the South Pacific Ethnographic/Margaret Mead Archive at the Library of Congress. At least one box of Bateson materials (presumably mostly correspondence from the early 1950s, in which the present archive is very weak) is known to have perished from rain at the Bateson cabin at Gorda, Big Sur.
     Correspondents include Nora Barlow, Ray Birdwhistell, Henry W. Brosin, Erik Erikson, Paul Goodman, Jay Haley, Gertrude Hendrix, Anatol Holt, Don D. Jackson, Arthur Koestler, Lawrence S. Kubie, R. D. Laing, Edmund Leach, Claude Lévi-Strauss, John Lilly, Konrad Lorenz, Rollo May, Warren McCulloch, Margaret Mead, Kenneth Norris, Lita Osmundsen, Roy Rappaport, Jurgen Ruesch, Francisco Varela, Geoffrey Vickers, Heinz von Foerster, C. H. Waddington, Paul Watzlawick, John Weakland, Joseph and Jane Wheelwright, Lancelot Law Whyte, Norbert Wiener, Anthony Wilden, and Philip Wylie, to name just a few. There are a number of inter-office memoranda and correspondence from Bateson’s years at John Lilly’s Communication Research Institute and at the Oceanic Institute, a considerable correspondence about the publication of Steps to an Ecology of Mind and Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity, a variety of materials relating to Bateson’s service on the University of California Board of Regents, assorted correspondence with various professional societies and journals as well as with funding sources (especially the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation, NIH, and NOTS), and many letters arranging the details of essays, lectures, conferences, classes, etc. Finally, there is an extensive correspondence relating to the three Wenner-Gren conferences which Bateson chaired. Topics covered in the correspondence include the entire range of Bateson’s wide field of interests.
     For further information about the collection’s origins and methods of arrangement and cataloging, see the appendix on the history and arrangement of the Archive.

APPENDIX:
HISTORY AND ARRANGEMENT OF THE ARCHIVE,
INCLUDING METHODOLOGY

     The earliest material in the archive was either brought with him when Gregory Bateson moved to the West Coast in 1948 or, in a few cases, mailed to him later by Margaret Mead. Most of the materials then moved with him to the Virgin Islands in 1963, to Hawaii in 1965, and back to the West Coast in 1971. Two boxes of files (presumably primarily correspondence dating from the early 1950s, in which the archive is very weak) are known to have perished from rain at the Bateson cabin at Gorda, Big Sur, some time in the early 1970s.
     Following his bout with lung cancer and his change of residence from Ben Lomond to Esalen Institute, Gregory asked me in the summer of 1978 to box up the materials in his Kresge College office at UCSC. These materials were temporarily stored in the basement of his former Ben Lomond home, which also still housed the bulk of the family’s possessions. Some months later, I helped the Batesons move all of their possessions from that house, the bulk of these going either into storage or to their house at Gorda. When Gregory died in the summer of 1980, I organized and boxed his books, files, tape recordings, papers, etc., and added them to the storage crate in Santa Cruz. At that time, I made a preliminary list of all the tape recordings and books in storage, as well as a complete list of the contents of the storage crate as a whole. In late 1980 and early 1981, I prepared for Catherine a correct transcription of Gregory’s March 1980 "Eternal Verities" lecture, as well as of two taped drafts of that talk (different from the very poor transcription contained in the original manuscript materials for Where Angels Fear to Tread); and I wrote descriptions to accompany the Gregory Bateson tape recordings which were to be sold by Esalen. I made further additions to the storage crate in July of 1981, and finally in February of 1982 I went through the crate a final time and extracted the materials which would appropriately constitute Gregory’s archive. Initial funding for the archival task was arranged by mid-July, 1982, at which time I began full-time work on the sorting, identification, and cataloging of the contents of the archive. [Note: A further piece of work which preceded official work on the archive was an updated bibliography I prepared for the June 1986 American Anthropologist’s obituary of Gregory Bateson. This bibliography contains a number of typographical mistakes and other errors and is completely superseded by the "Bibliography of the Published Work of Gregory Bateson" later prepared from original sources for the archive itself—cf. the section of this Guide/Catalog entitled "Bibliography and Published Articles File (PAF)."]
     Before enumerating the details of my arrangement and cataloging of the archive, I would like to offer for the benefit of those who might be contemplating similar work a few general methodological suggestions and considerations. These guidelines arose from a long trial and error process, as well as from my years of training by Gregory Bateson, and I am confident that the beginning archivist will find them a source of assistance and solace. Stated succinctly, these guidelines for creating an integrated archive are as follows:
     1. Leaving everything as it is, go through everything first and begin to get a feel for the archive’s contents as a whole.
     2. Still leaving everything as it is, go through again and mentally try out categories for organization, noting problems posed by each category or method of subdivision. Obviously, the original organization already existing, if any, should receive primary consideration.
     3. Decide what kind of archive you ideally wish to create—a working archive designed for the study of the person’s work, a mausoleum-like archive which leaves every scrap exactly where it was found, a completely reworked archive based on particular themes the archivist wishes to impose on the material, etc. (In my case, I deliberately chose to create a working archive maximally useful to the researcher wishing to study the work and thought of Gregory Bateson—a decision with which I believe Bateson himself would strongly concur.)
     4. Find out all the preservation techniques to which you have to conform, since these will often determine to some extent not only your categories but also your organization within categories as well as the extent of your cataloging. (Besides use of acid-free materials, a primary consideration is what to do about staples and paper clips and other rustable items or components of items—while still preserving order in some way.)
     5. Much of the information about particular items will inevitably be irretrievably lost as a result of your necessary efforts, so be sure to note, where useful, what was originally beside, beneath, above, attached to, etc., what else. This may be the only clue to identification of some items (although, of course, it is not by any means totally trustworthy). These notes, preferably attached to the item, can later be discarded once you have finished your work, noted in your guide/catalog any significant cross-references, etc.
     6. Realize (as you inevitably will!) that all categorization is ultimately arbitrary and let the material itself be the primary dictator of the means of organization. Do not be afraid to discard any "rules" gleaned elsewhere, unless you create/recreate them yourself for good reasons. Keep in mind also that these days it is not nearly so important where the physical item is located so long as you have an information access guide that can help a variety of kinds of researchers find what they need to know, including where to look next once they have found the first thing they sought. The most important questions to ask of yourself are a) have I made it possible for people to find what they want, and b) have I let the material express itself in the form which makes most sense to it.
     7. Once you start dividing material into categories, do it all at once, i.e., begin creating all categories’ organization at once, so that if it is untenable you will catch it early. (Keep in mind here that now that you are physically separating items, you will do yourself and others a favor if you are careful to note anything useful about the propinquities you are obliterating forever.)
     8. Organize and catalog the smaller and more easily defined portions of the archive first, so that you can save until last those portions which you might want to catalog or index by means of numbered folders and documents to save time and work.
     9. Use note cards rather than lists, so that when an error or addition is detected as you go along, you will not have to retype whole pages. (Even if you have a word processer you may still find it useful to start out with cards; for one thing, they make it easy to generate lists based upon both, say, date and title of articles, for example.)
     10. It is in general better to mull things over for long periods than quickly to begin moving items from one place to another. A good deal of the job consists of filling your conscious with as much as it can hold regarding the contents of the archive, until the "right" organization presents itself. If you wish an integrated archive, you must at all times remain aware of the evolution of the entire archive, not only to maintain perspective but to facilitate identification of items and to detect appropriate cross-referencing to be noted.
     11. When you get stuck, move to another type of work within the archive, but make it an easy, minor piece of work, lest you get too involved in another complicated morass and find yourself stuck in two impossible messes.
     12. Before you finish, you might want to photocopy those draft manuscripts which have inserts stapled or taped to certain pages. They are bound to get separated sooner or later, and a photocopy can identify where they belong.
     13. If you are creating a working archive, and if money is available, devise lists of items which will complete or supplement the archive—books, films, tape recordings, and other items which a researcher using the archive might find useful.
     14. Finally, know that your job is one virtually demanding compulsiveness and be sure that you want to do that to yourself. Also, be aware that categorizing things can conceivably take you to the edge of your tether (as Linneaus discovered), and when the big picture of your task threatens to overwhelm you, it is time to concentrate on some small manageable portion for a while.
     Ecology of Mind considerations would also suggest that there is wisdom in occasionally putting into practice the principle enunciated by Warren McCulloch’s mother with reference to the subject of memory (about which she knew a good deal since she was losing hers): put a little bit of everything everywhere. Translated into archival work, this dictum suggests that it might occasionally be a good idea to have two copies of an item in two different portions of the archive, with cross-referencing noted.

     General considerations being thus enumerated, I will proceed to relate a number of specifics with respect to the process of arranging and cataloging the Bateson Archive. (The reader is advised that still further information regarding the organization and cataloging of the archive may be found by consulting the Introduction, Acknowledgments, Scope and Content Note, Series Description, and Container Listing sections of this Guide/Catalog, as well as the introductions to the Correspondence, Complete Articles File, and Notebooks sections.)
     Because of preservation and storage considerations, the films received first attention. All of the films which were in Bateson’s possession at the time of his death were examined, identified, and cataloged, and a list of the six major films was inserted in the published UCSC film catalog. [See the first four pages of the "Films" section of this Guide/Catalog.] A note was also made of the work which remained to be done on the films to improve their condition and to prepare copies to be made available for public use. Additional films not presently in the archive which would be of interest to Bateson scholars include the following:
     1) "David Berenson Interview with Gregory Bateson," March 17, 1980, available from IEA in New York. [See transcript in Complete Articles File.]
     2) "A Balinese Baby" (2 reels) and "Bathing Babies in Three Cultures" (1 reel), available from the New York University Film Library, 26 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003. [See the "Note" at the end of the first half of the second page of the "Films" section of this Guide/Catalog.]
     3) "Hitlerjunge Quex," with Bateson’s analytic titles (3 reels), available from the Film Library, Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, New York, NY.
     4) "Learning to Dance in Bali," available from New York University Film Library, 26 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003, and reviewed in American Anthropologist 85 (March 1983): 226-227.
     A sizeable collection of Bateson films which had been stored for years at the Eastern Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute was tracked down just in time to prevent its shipment to the Smithsonian, and when they arrived some months later, they, too, were identified and stored. These films, 90 reels consisting mostly of unique negatives, are therapy films and therefore not available for viewing for at least ten years. [See the list entitled "Bateson E.P.P.I. Films" in the "Films" section of this Guide/Catalog.]
     The next task undertaken was the separating out of those materials which properly belonged in other archives, specifically two boxes of papers and personal effects of Gregory’s parents (Caroline Beatrice Bateson and the geneticist William Bateson) and two boxes of pre-World War II GB items which the literary executor stipulated should go to the Library of Congress. The WB/CBB materials were cataloged and eventually sent to the John Innes Institute in Norwich, England, WB having served as that Institute’s first director.
     Other early work on the archive consisted of general sorting, getting a feel for the total contents of the archive so as to work towards an integrated whole reflecting Bateson’s own epistemology, beginning work on a biographical chronology to be used to assist in dating various items, seeking funding (a constant, and increasingly futile, chore throughout the project), formulating a list of suggested books which the Library should acquire to supplement the archive, and reflecting on cataloging procedure, including both physical arrangement and characteristics of the Guide/Catalog. (This is as good a place as any to observe that the two largest portions of the archive, the Correspondence Files and the Complete Articles File—as well as the Octopus and Cetacean Observation Materials—were kept essentially as they were found, though supplemented by additional material and occasionally, especially in the case of the letters in the "Miscellaneous" folder for each letter of the alphabet in the Correspondence Files, placed in folders not originally separate, this last for reasons of preservation.)
     Next, the contents of the Correspondence File folders were placed in chronological order (or, in the case of the alphabet-letters’ "Miscellaneous" folders, in alphabetical order), and a preliminary list was made of the Correspondence and Articles folders, to facilitate research with respect to identification of particular items as well as to provide a ready reference to the total contents and structure of the archive. The Articles File list also facilitated acquisition of Bateson articles which were missing. Folders which had been extracted from both files so as to make room in filing cabinets over the years were reintercalated into the bulk of the files, as were the files Bateson had at Esalen in his last two years and the boxes of files which Lipset had taken for use in writing his biography of Bateson.
     Once all of the articles missing from the Articles File had been acquired and added, and once bits of draft manuscript found in other boxes had been identified and added to the appropriate folder, the various drafts and fragments of each article were placed in the order of their creation so that the evolution of the essay could be observed—handwritten markings, and textual errors in published essays, also being noted. Manuscripts found in the Correspondence Files were transferred to the Articles File, with appropriate cross-referencing being made on each side; and correspondence found in the Articles Files were either moved to the Correspondence Files, photocopied and moved, or left with the article, in all of which cases appropriate cross-referencing was made in each File. The cross-referencing between all portions of the archive ensured the integration of the whole and permits the researcher to identify the provenance and contextualities of a number of items which would otherwise remain obscure.
     Having unearthed a surprising number of minor errors or omissions in Vern Carroll’s original bibliography in Steps to an Ecology of Mind, I felt compelled to recover the entire ground to ensure that the archive’s bibliography was as complete and accurate as possible. The result was the archive’s "Bibliography of the Published Work of Gregory Bateson," compiled from original sources and superseding all previous Gregory Bateson bibliographies, including the one by Carroll and myself in the June 1982 American Anthropologist. A "Published Articles File" was created to accompany the bibliography. This file contains the most complete or most polished version of every published GB item, and the articles are arranged in the order in which they are represented in the archive’s bibliography. The Published Articles File (PAF) was designed for the use of scholars and students who wish solely to read the final published version of GB’s articles, the hope being that the irreplaceable draft manuscripts in the Complete Articles File would thus be spared unnecessary handling. The Complete Articles File (CAF) contains everything in the PAF, plus unpublished articles, successive drafts (when they have survived), materials used in the writing of the article (in a few cases), and copies of published reprintings and excerpts, so that the scholar interested in every stage of evolution of the manuscript may follow its history of publication as well. Finally, as an aid to the researcher interested in following the evolution of GB’s ideas, an appendix to this Guide/Catalog was created which attempts to place every published and unpublished GB article in chronological order by date of actual writing (generally the date of completion of the article). This chronological ordering of GB’s writings includes items residing in the Library of Congress’s South Pacific Ethnographic/Margaret Mead archive and not available in the UCSC Bateson Archive. (It does not, however, include the "Notes and Fragments" found in the UCSC archive.) As my work proceeds on an anthology of GB’s essays to be entitled Further Steps to an Ecology of Mind [published as A Sacred Unity: Further Steps to an Ecology of Mind] and on a volume or volumes of his most important correspondence, I will add any necessary corrections to the list in the Guide/Catalog accompanying the Bateson Archive at UCSC Special Collections.
     The next major tasks undertaken were the identification and cataloging of the Book Manuscripts, Octopus and Cetacean Observation Materials, Notebooks, and Miscellaneous Items. The sections in this Guide/Catalog devoted to these items are relatively self-explanatory, and the Notebooks section contains an introduction elucidating their cataloging and placement in chronological order.
     In November of 1983, upon learning that Lois Bateson wished to sell Gregory’s library, I went to North Carolina and made a catalog of the books, noting the existence of annotations, inscriptions, signatures, inserted notes or letters, and, in the case of more valuable works, dates of publication, edition, and approximate value. Wishing to see her get a better price than she was prepared to accept at that point, and being concerned that the sale benefit the scholarly community if at all possible, such that at least WB’s library, and if possible GB’s annotated volumes, might be available to scholars, I persuaded Lois to let me serve as her agent in the sale and succeeded in selling WB’s valuable library to the John Innes Institute and Gregory’s library to UCSC, at the same time bringing her a substantially larger sum. (Scholars may be interested to know that the John Innes Institute has a considerable collection of William Bateson papers, books, correspondence, etc., as well as a collection devoted to the history of genetics. Queries should be addressed to The John Innes Institute, Colney Lane, Norwich NR4 7UH, U.K.) At the request of UCSC Special Collections, and using their guidelines as well as my own, I also noted which of Gregory’s books were of special importance to the archive. [See the starred items in the Appendix on the Gregory Bateson and William Bateson Libraries.] I also took the opportunity to photocopy GB marginalia in books which were either retained by the family or sold to the John Innes Institute as part of WB’s library. [See the "Miscellaneous Items" section of this Guide/Catalog.]
     By far the most massive piece of work, however, as is evident from the proportions of the total Guide/Catalog represented by each section, was the cataloging and indexing of the Correspondence Files, the largest single portion of the archive. This task was made significantly more complex by the decision to create a comprehensive name and word/phrase/subject index incorporating in addition identification of every potentially obscure reference and allusion in Bateson’s letters, whether it be to friends, authors, literary and scientific works, historical facts, quotations, cultures, or ideas. By making the word/subject index somewhat more like a concordance than a typical subject index, I believe I have done much to push the researcher towards what Bateson called "double description," thus subtly pushing the users of the archive in the direction of the total epistemology which unites all the seemingly disparate work which Bateson pursued in his life. In seeking the words or phrases in the index relevant to his or her interests, the researcher will be insensibly drawn into an examination of the nature of context and the nature of Bateson’s overall epistemology—that which Bateson would himself most have the researcher explore—by seeing the way in which GB attends to regularities underlying a variety of supposedly separate "disciplines." The researcher is also afforded a much more comprehensive approach to his or her query than would be made available by the more usual subject index, based as it inevitably is on the judgments and mental habits of the indexer rather than the producer of the text being indexed. Also, in view of the fact that people’s understandings and categorizations of what Bateson is talking about in any particular passage change as they grow in understanding of his work and thought, it seemed preferable to peg the index to his own words. And reading through the index for relevant words and phrases will provide the researcher adumbrations which he or she might not have thought to seek, a felicitous state of affairs also pushing one in the multi-faceted, moiré-like direction GB would have one go. Finally, the reader should note that the Name and Word/Subject Indexes together provide simultaneously an abbreviated description of a letter’s content as well as the raw materials for an index. The name index also corrects name misspellings in the letters.
     The rule governing the creation of the name index was that all names mentioned in GB’s letters were listed, whereas in the case of letters written by others, only the names of persons with whom they were personally acquainted were listed (lest the name index refer the researcher to opinions about, say, Immanuel Kant, expressed by persons other than GB). The word/subject index applies solely to GB’s letters, and an attempt has been made to include every important (especially theoretically important) word or phrase in each GB letter. Only occasionally has a subject designation been included which takes the form of a word not used by GB in the document ("anthropology," "schizophrenia," and "dolphins" being perhaps the most frequent).
     Each document in the Correspondence Files is identified by document number, type of document (typewritten letter, carbon copy, etc.), date, number of pages, number of sheets, document number of the document to which it is a response (if applicable), relevant cross-references either to other letters in the Correspondence Files or to documents in other portions of the archive, proper names mentioned, important words, phrases, and subjects mentioned, and any remarks deemed useful in addition to the information already provided. The reader should note that since "Type of Document" designations are provided only for GB’s letters, this provides an easy way to go through the Correspondence Item Listings and quickly identify GB letters. Note that the document number consists of two numbers separated by a hyphen. The first number is the number of the folder in the Correspondence File, and the second number is the number of the item in that folder. These numbers are not only a useful reference for each document, but they ensure that the order of documents in the Correspondence Files is preserved despite repeated use. Page numbers of multi-page items are provided in a third number separated from the document number by another hyphen. Dates and other information provided in brackets were supplied by me.
     Both to assist in the identification of items and to serve as the basis for my subsequent work on the editing of a volume or volumes of GB’s most important correspondence, the bulk of the Correspondence Files was photocopied and placed in chronological order. The time and effort this task entailed proved well worth it in terms of the identification and explication of a large number of previously obscure items. It also made possible a great many cross-references which would otherwise have gone unnoted.
     All correspondence folder titles which are not proper names originate with either GB or his secretaries.
     The biographical chronology was compiled from a number of biographical sketches, material in the Library of Congress archive, Lipset’s biography, and correspondence and other materials in the UCSC archive. It is to the best of my knowledge the most accurate GB biographical chronology in existence, and variations from it should be carefully corroborated before believing them. This is as good a place as any to add that I have labored mightily to create a meticulous and scrupulously accurate Guide/Catalog, and while inevitably typographical and other errors still exist, my determinations of dating, identification, etc., should not be taken lightly. I am well aware of information in various parts of the archive which contradict my determinations, and in every case I encountered, there was more reliable information elsewhere in the archive which supported the determinations I have provided. Naturally I make no pretense to infallibility; I simply wish to alert the researcher to the fact that where he or she encounters contradictions, it will more often than not prove wise to look further.
     The final tasks were the writing of the Introduction, Acknowledgments, Scope and Content Note, Series Description, Container Listing, introductions to the Correspondence, Complete Articles File, and Notebooks sections of the Guide/Catalog, and the present appendix, as well as making a number of corrections to the appendix chronologically listing the dates of writing of Bateson’s published and unpublished works.

Overall Methodology: Some Final Remarks
     In addition to the details enumerated above, it should be noted that from an overall standpoint, the way in which the archive was conceived, organized, cataloged, and indexed was so far as it lay within my power specifically intended to reflect the mind of the person whose archive it is. From beginning to end, I approached the creation of the archive as itself an exercise in Ecology of Mind. My metaphor for my methodology was that of a spider and his or her web, and I saw it as my task to keep at all times a metaphorical leg on each of the various strands which went together to constitute the total archive. In short, it was an ecological approach to the archival task. It has been my aim to organize, catalog, and index the corpus of Bateson’s life-work in such a way as to encourage the researcher in the direction of the overall epistemology, the way of thinking which Bateson called the "ecology of mind" or the ecology of ideas. This goal has been achieved to my satisfaction. I have also striven to write the Guide/Catalog in such a way as to offer others the benefit of the fruits of my own research and knowledge.
     As I said in the Introduction, it has been my aim to perform what every responsible literary executor and archival repository would wish done with the material entrusted to their care, namely, to order it, to devise means to preserve that order despite use by many persons over a period of years, to identify items which persons without the benefit of many years of study could not otherwise identify, and to distinguish the final form of potentially publishable documents from their various incomplete versions. In short, to render the work of my fellow scholars easier while simultaneously ensuring maximum preservation of the materials.
     Finally, in that I have labored to provide a considerable amount of annotation, identification, and cross-referencing of benefit to the most advanced Bateson scholar or student, I assume it goes without saying that my understanding of the nature of that body of theory and knowledge called Ecology of Mind grew immeasurably and constituted a source of strength and joy which enabled the work to continue through the most trying of circumstances.
     May the archive be used for the enrichment of human vision, and not for exacerbation of the twin diseases of the age, trivialization and ossification.

back to top of page