Rod Serling poster

SPECIAL COLLECTIONS

SERLING PRIMARY SOURCES


For researchers (and really intense fans), the best sources for Rod Serling information are several Special Collections housed in libraries around the country: two in the East, two in the Midwest, and one in the West.  There you can access primary sources -- candid correspondence, original drafts of scripts, photos, and more.  Fortunately for scholars, Rod Serling saved everything that came across his desk, and much of it is available for study.

Online, the comprehensive Twilight Zone Archives has a page of Serling correspondence.


  • Ithaca College Special Collections, Ithaca, NY -- From the school where Serling taught in the early 70's, a collection including teleplays, screenplays, unproduced scripts, published works, and secondary materials.  Teleplays span 1952-1970, covering 23 series and 64 shows.  Unfortunately, the unpublished and unproduced material is closed for general research, although all of Serling's 92 Twilight Zone scripts, housed at Ithaca College, are being published in a limited-edition series.
  • Rod Serling Memorial Foundation, Binghamton, NY -- A large collection of memorabilia, photographs, scripts, films and tapes (including kinescopes).  The material is not all housed in the same location, so researchers are advised to contact the foundation ahead of time to make arrangements to access it.
  • Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, Madison -- Rod Serling himself donated to Madison what is easily the largest collection of primary sources.  Over 80 boxes of material, including correspondence, scripts (produced and unproduced), speeches, fan mail, financial records, articles, reports, press releases, clippings, and audiotapes.


Last Update March 13, 2007

Danville Public Library

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