The Dick Higgins collection extensively documents Higgins' literary, performance, music, artistic and personal activities from 1972 to 1993, with some correspondence with family members, lawyers and accountants dated as early as 1960. Higgins' early Fluxus, Happenings and Something Else Press publishing activities are not as well represented. Most of that material from ca.1957-1971 is now housed at Archive Sohm, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart.
This archive consists primarily of carbons of Higgins' letters. Written in a frank and open style, the letters contain many artistic and personal insights into his numerous endeavors. Attached to his letters are many responses and, in some cases extensive exchanges with Fluxus, Mail art and Art and Language artists, Concrete and Sound poets and New Music composers, and small press publishers and poets. Thus, the correspondence includes many art "pieces" and manuscripts sent to Higgins as gifts or for comment.
The archive contains a substantial quantity of Higgins' works in original manuscript form, some with annotations and correspondence, and also includes works rejected by Higgins. Additionally housed is production material on 26 of Higgins' 45 published books from Something Else Press, Unpublished/Printed Editions and elsewhere, along with books by four other authors (two at Something Else Press and two others for Emmett Williams and Robert Filliou) and one killed project. Many of his earlier books, ephemeral publications and other works can be found in the Getty Research Institute's Jean Brown Archive, as well as the Gilbert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection and the Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry. The collection also has a small amount of miscellaneous personal papers and extensive research and correspondence files accumulated by Higgins for his publication Pattern Poetry: Guide to an Unknown Literature, 1987.
The archive is organized in five series: Series I. Correspondence; Series II. Works; Series III. Books; Series IV. Personal; Series V. Pattern Poetry.