Giving Overdue Credit to Librarians, Archivists

While not wishing in any way to diminish Rick Schmidlin’s accomplishment in attempting to reconstruct Orson Welles’ “Touch of Evil” (“Orson Welles Gets Final Cut--at Last,” Jan. 31), I would like to amend his comment: “I even discovered some lost documents at USC.”

When Schmidlin called the USC Cinema-Television library to ask what we had on “Touch of Evil,” one of our archivists, Ned Comstock, amazed him by simply presenting him with the so-called lost production files and memos.

Like many documents contained in the archives at USC and other universities, the Welles materials were not lost but waiting for some scholar to express an interest in them. Last year, Comstock similarly flabbergasted a researcher by producing a supposedly lost Margaret Mitchell manuscript now on exhibit in Atlanta, and two years ago he “discovered” the lost mattes from “The Wizard of Oz.”

That these types of print material still exist at all today is due in no small part to the efforts of librarians and archivists throughout the world who catalog and care for them themselves. USC, like similar institutions, will continue its commitment to collecting and preserving the materials of Hollywood’s history, no matter what. However, acknowledgment of the often unheralded work done by librarians and archivists would be greatly appreciated.

STEVE HANSON, Director

USC Cinema-Television Library and Archives of Performing Arts