Preserve Vintage Wurlitzer Engineering Documents

UPDATE: After storing the bulk of the documents in Mississippi for six months, we were able to drive back, load them into a truck, and bring them to New York. We now have all of the documents with us, and we are sorting them now.

Our original goal in this gofundme was to purchase the documents and transport them from Mississippi to New York. Thank you so much to everyone who helped make that happen! We are now going to work on sorting and digitizing.

This link has more information about what the documents are, and the process of archiving and digitizing them.

Right now, we have three goals:

Putting the documents in folders. On inspection, the documents were roughly organized numerically by part number, but a large chunk of it was out of order. In addition, about half of the documents were in the file cabinets without being sorted into files, and over the years they had started to slide around, bending and getting crumpled. We put them into bankers' boxes as neatly as possible, but they have started to slide around again. We would like to put them into manila folders, which will keep them straight. (The files that were already stored in folders are in excellent shape: crisp and flat.)

We understand that acid-free folders are better for long-term storage, but acid-free folders are very expensive. We would like to just use regular folders for the short-term, and—once the documents are safe, scanned, and no longer at risk for bending—figure out a storage system that is better suited for preservation later.

Folders are $0.08 each. We have already purchased about 1500 folders and have not made a dent in filing. We will probably need about 5000 more.

We also need more bankers' boxes, because putting the documents into folders takes up more space than when the documents are not in folders. Bankers' boxes are $25 for a 10-pack.

Side note about used folders: Since the folders are a temporary solution anyway, we are ok with gently used folders. Unfortunately, for some reason, used folders sell in the New York area for more than 8 cents per folder...? So, used folders have not been a fruitful line of inquiry for us.

Sorting the documents by size. Scanning the documents is going to be a big project: there are tens of thousands of them, they all have creases (so they can't go into any feed-thru scanners), and some of them are 36x48". The good news is that we have a pretty good set-up for scanning 8.5x11" papers. We are able to make high-res, high-quality scans, with true colors, at a reasonably efficient speed. (You can see some of these scans on our website.) With a little more equipment, we should be able to do 11x17" and 17x22" as well.

To facilitate this, we have been sorting the documents by size. This makes folders even more of a necessity. All of the documents have been folded down into a size that fits into a letter-sized folder (this was done a long time ago, before we acquired them). The thicker documents, with multiple folds, have provided stability to the thinner documents, so they can all be stuffed into the file cabinet (or the bankers' boxes) with (for the most part) minimal damage. After sorting them by size, we're no longer mixing the thick documents with the thin documents, and the thin documents aren't strong enough to be stuffed into a bankers' box without the support of a folder. They would just slide around and get creased.

Scanning the documents. As soon as the documents are sorted and filed, we're going to start scanning all of the 8.5x11" documents. Although we are scanning them ourselves—and it is, in that sense, a more economical option than hiring someone to scan them—it does take time away from the work that puts food on the table. We are grateful for any donations that make it possible for us to take the time to scan and archive this collection.

The original description for this gofundme, from November 2022:

This covers some of the expense of purchasing the documents to save them & renting a truck to move them from Mississippi to NY for archiving. A several day process that took us completely by surprise.

The story in short:

We are trying to save and donate an archive of Wurlitzer Technical Documents including schematics detailing the every part used in these instruments.

The documents have been neatly saved by a former Wurlitzer employee since Wurlitzer closed their doors in 1984. The collection is meticulously organized. But it needs to be moved from the warehouse which they are stored, because the new owners need to move their business in. They had no plans to keep anything in the warehouse, and would have disposed of the documents if we did not agree to purchase asap. 

We used our limited remaining funds to buy the documents from the owners, but we need help covering the costs getting them from the warehouse and to a safe place.