ANN ARBOR—Just as Hollywood is about to hand out its favorite statue, the University of Michigan is making available a wide-reaching collection from Oscar winner Orson Welles.

Recently obtained through donation and purchase from private collections, the U-M archive contains original scripts and screenplays, business records, correspondence, photographs, treatments, reviews, unfinished television and film projects, and film footage in various formats.

“This is an opportunity to have material for original research,” said Peggy Daub, head of U-M’s Special Collections Library. “It is the cornerstone of collections from visionaries of stage, screen and radio.”

The Welles archive joins other collections in the library such as those from Hal Cooper, writer/director of TV series, such as “All in the Family,” “The Brady Bunch,” “Maude,” and “Gilligan’s Island,” and the Ellen Van Volkenberg and Maurice Browne collection, co-founders of the Chicago Little Theater.

“Students used to reading biographies will find this raw material an eye-opener,” Daub said. “They’ll be able to make their own analyses of the material and the people involved.”

About a fourth of the Welles material at U-M has been funded for processing and is now available for use by the public. Daub says it will take about a year to process, organize and catalog the entire collection once funding is obtained.