Why There Were Changes to the Wallace Archive

source

TL;DR

The primary-source explanation, from Wallace's literary agent Bonnie Nadell, of why parts of the Harry Ransom Center's David Foster Wallace archive were restricted in 2011 — published on Howling Fantods (with her permission) as a counterweight to the coverage of the self-help-book removal. Nadell's account: in the grief and haste after Wallace's death, she and Karen Green packed his library into boxes without realising how much private material it held, and on their first visit in July 2011 found books mis-attributable to Wallace (others' annotations, garage-sale copies), books carrying third parties' personal contact information, and self-help books bearing "really personal comments about family members". Those items were annotated, redacted, or restricted for the family's privacy. It is an archive-ethics and provenance document — it advances no theory scoped to a novel crux — but it is the authoritative record of what changed in the archive and why, and it carries provenance warnings for anyone using the annotated-library material as evidence.

Key claims

The frame: after "a few pieces recently about some changes" to the DFW archive, Howling Fantods's Nick Maniatis relayed an email conversation with Nadell to "clarify what has changed"; the body is Nadell's own statement, reproduced with permission.
How the mistakes happened: Karen Green and Nadell saw the archives for the first time in July [2011]. "In those first months after David died, the Ransom Center had approached us about buying the archives", and, Nadell writes, "in the craziness of grief and the mess of packing up the books into boxes to send to the archives, we made some mistakes".
Mis-attributable annotations: some books had been bought at garage sales or given to Wallace already annotated, so "scholars in the archives might think they were reading David's thoughts/critiques on Mill on the Floss and they were actually some stranger's". These were removed or now carry an explanatory note.
Third-party personal data: "There were others that had people's cell phone numbers and home addresses that David had written in books", so that personal information is now covered over, or the pages copied and removed.
The self-help books: "And yes we did decide to restrict some of the self help books that were pored over and written about on the Awl" — because "these were really personal comments about family members (written years ago) and are private".
The general lesson: a personal library with a reader's marginalia "is a new thing really", and, Nadell says, "we did not realize how much personal and private information was in them"; the restriction serves "the peace of mind and privacy of David's family".
The principle: "It's a matter of privacy, to me. These are not public figures, their lives are not meant to be discussed on the internet".

Themes

Privacy versus scholarship (the marginalia of a private library exposing living family members); the ethics and provenance-fragility of a literary archive (mis-attributable annotations, third-party data, a partial post-hoc restriction); grief and the posthumous stewardship of a writer's estate.

Cross-references

theawl-bustillos-self-help-removed — Maria Bustillos's notice of the removal (the ~320→299 drop); this Nadell statement is the direct answer to it, supplying the reasoning Bustillos's notice lacked.
theawl-bustillos-self-help-library — Bustillos's original essay on the self-help library, the writing that prompted the restriction ("pored over and written about on the Awl").
dtmax-every-love-story — the biography drawing on the same estate/agent relationships; Nadell and Karen Green are its recurring figures.
gc-ep010-nick-maniatis-howling-fantods — the Howling Fantods proprietor who obtained and published Nadell's statement.