The Writers Guild Foundation Archive welcomes interest in the collections from everyone - WGA members and staffers, researchers, students and the general public, with minimal restrictions and conditions. Please email to request an appointment or receive remote assistance.

The collections include writers from the dawn of cinema, early radio, the Golden Age of Television, up to current writers for film, television, and streaming. The archival holdings consist mainly of scripts, annotated drafts and production material, but may include oral histories, memoirs, photographs, correspondence and ephemera. The archive also collects materials from Writers Guild Foundation events and Writers Guild of America West programs, awards and historical records.

Collection Guides and Searching

Our holdings are arranged primarily by name of writer and can be found in our catalog by browsing Archival Collections or searching by titles and/or individual names.

Many notable collections are listed at the Online Archive of California and we are continually adding more.

In addition to writers, our records also pertain to producers, directors, executives, WGA staff and other industry professionals who have materials in the collections. If you are unable to locate a specific writer, materials may be part of other collections or unprocessed.

Due to the irreplaceable and sometimes fragile nature of the collections, the Writers Guild Foundation requires users to adhere to the following guidelines:

Materials do not circulate and are to be used only in the reading room. Material cannot be copied, scanned or loaned out due to copyright restrictions.

Users must check in at the library desk, and provide a form of identification, such as driver’s license, passport, or Guild ID, to use the library and archives.

Large backpacks, bags, and briefcases must be placed in an assigned locker.

Pencils, laptop computers, and paper are allowed. Wireless internet is available.

Food and beverages (aside from water) are not permitted.

Cell phones must be silenced.

After checking in, users must fill out a materials request form to access archival items.

Materials must be handled with proper care and kept in their original order.

Use of materials may be restricted due to physical condition, confidentiality constraints, donor restrictions, copyright issues or unprocessed state.

Fulfilling requests for digital reproductions are at the discretion of the Archivist.

The Writers Guild of America originally began as The Screen Writers’ Guild with a social component called The Writers’ Club. You can find union history in a variety of books and articles. In our Resource Center, you can find a history of the SWG during the 1920s, as a precursor to unionizing in 1933. There, you will also find links to vintage SWG publications from the 1930s and 1940s that have been digitized and are available freely online. These publications are a great source for information about how screenwriters fought to unionize in the 1930s and Guild activities in the beginning of the McCarthy and Blacklist era.

Some notable records and topics reflected in the archive are the 1933 founding, efforts to negotiate a basic contract, Communism and Blacklist issues, the birth of the WGA in 1954, oral histories about the first few decades of the SWG recorded in 1978, the work of a number of important committees, recordings of past WGA events and meetings, and all Guild publications spanning 1934-present.

When citing scripts or any other material from our collections, please credit the Writers Guild Foundation Shavelson-Webb Library & Archive as the repository. Scripts are unpublished manuscripts and should be described as such including the writer’s name and draft date. Please contact the Archivist to obtain permission to publish reproductions of materials. In many cases, the researcher must also obtain permission from the copyright holder before publishing. As a courtesy, please provide the Writers Guild Foundation with a copy of your publication that was based on research at the library and archive or send an email and include any relevant links.

If you are a screenwriter, the family of a writer, or a collector who would like to donate scripts and other archival ephemera, please get in touch at library@wgfoundation.org or call the Archivist at 323-782-4680. Please include a brief description of the contents and a rough estimate of the amount (e.g. number of boxes or scripts).

We welcome new additions to the collections and do all we can to preserve the craft and voices of screen storytelling. Through your generous donations, we are able to build our holdings and preserve and make available writers’ stories and contributions for future generations. Collections typically consist of script drafts for produced and unproduced projects, outlines, memos, correspondence, production ephemera such as call sheets, and photographs. The Society of American Archivists has a brief guide to what it means to donate to an archival repository and explains the expectations of the donor and recipient.

If you are interested in volunteering your time in support of our mission, please fill out this form and let us know.