The San Diego Air & Space Museum’s Library & Archives collection has grown significantly, increasing 25 percent with the major donation late in 2015 of the Aerospace Education Center Collection. The newly acquired collection is the outgrowth of more than 50 years of intensive private collecting by Jay Miller – a noted aviation historian, author, and retired museum director. It is one of the largest private compilations of aviation material, recently appraised at $4.5 million.

The non-profit Arkansas Aviation Historical Society acquired the collection from Miller in 1992. The acquisition was sponsored by Dick Holbert, President and Chief Executive Officer of Central Flying Service of Little Rock, Arkansas, as well as Chairman of the Arkansas Aviation Historical Society. Initially displayed at the Butler Aviation Museum in Little Rock, the collection was eventually housed at the Central Arkansas Library System, Aerospace Education Center in Little Rock, which opened on June 10, 1995.

When the Aerospace Education Center’s closed on January 1, 2011, Holbert announced the Jay Miller collection would be liquidated to pay the Center’s outstanding debt. Custody remained with Central Flying Service. Truman Arnold Companies of Texarkana, Texas acquired the collection from Central Flying Service in January 2015 and donated it to the San Diego Air & Space Museum. With this acquisition, the San Diego Air & Space Museum is now the largest private non-profit aerospace library and archives in the nation.

Collection Breakdown:

The following is a summary breakdown of the collection’s major components:

• Books/booklets/manuscripts/monographs: Approximately 10,000 volumes dating from 1765 to the present.
• Magazines/periodicals/ephemerals: Over 100,000 pieces dating from the early 1900s to the present.
• Photographic images: Approximately 1,000,000 pieces dating from the pre-Wright era to the present.
• File materials: Equivalent to 80-plus four-drawer filing cabinets containing approximately 100,000 to 150,000 items.
• Miscellaneous artifacts/memorabilia: An indeterminate number of individual pieces, probably in excess of 2,500.

Integrated into the Aerospace Education Center collection are the following personal collections:

David Anderton Archive: Anderton was the founding bureau chief for Aviation Week magazine in Europe and later became a noted and highly acclaimed aviation author and photographer. At the end of WWII, he was a member of the OSS sent to Germany to evaluate technical data and documents for transferal to the U.S. for further review. As a result, there are many rare and unusual references describing German WWII aircraft and technology in the collection, including many once-classified reviews of German aircraft, aircraft companies, and aircraft and rocket hardware.

Irwin J. Bulban Collection Archive: Bulban was the bureau chief for Aviation Week magazine in the south central U.S. and a noted and very skilled aviation photographer. His archives include an enormous collection of rare and original negatives and photographs taken and collected over a period spanning some 50 years (prior to and including WW II and post-WW II era).

Vinko Dolson Archive: Dolson was part of senior management at Consolidated, later Convair and General Dynamics Corporation. This archive covers the post-World War II era through the 1970’s. Many of the papers in this collection were at one-time classified. The archive includes data describing many special government projects, including Fish, Kingfish, Peace Jack, Cloud Dancer and Big Safari.

Joe Nieto Archive: Nieto was a noted collector of World War I aviation photographs and materials. He was also well known for his exquisite multi-view drawings, many of which appeared in Model Airplane News.

Art Schoeni Collection Archive: Schoeni was the chief photographer for Vought Aircraft for nearly three decades. His archives included hundreds of Vought aircraft photos and reference materials dating back to the WW II era.

Steven Ahn Collection Archive: Steven Ahn was a noted photographer of commercial airliners. There are more than 30,000 images in his collection.

Over the next couple of years, the Library & Archives staff will be working to organize, catalog, and make this valuable collection accessible to researchers.