The Fannie Taylor Papers were placed on deposit in the archives during a twenty-year period as numerous individual accessions. After appraisal and review, the Original Collection was organized to correspond to the phases of her varied career. This arrangement revealed that while the collection contains important documentation about several activities, other phases of her career were incompletely represented and that still other activities are totally undocumented. The two phases of her career for which there are relatively organic files are her work for the Association of College and University Concert Managers and her leadership in the Wisconsin Arts Council. Documents about her work for the National Endowment for the Arts, a subject of more general research interest, were received in a disorganized condition, with much of the material loose and unfoldered. Appraisal of this section was further hindered by a lack of information about the records of the NEA still held by the agency or by the National Archives. Nevertheless, when it could be determined that documents were in the National Archives' custody or scheduled for eventual deposit, duplicate material in Taylor's papers was not retained. The resulting NEA material in Taylor's Papers, although clearly not her complete files as an Endowment administrator, contains important information on her work as director and consultant for the Music Program, as director of public information (1973-1976), and as historian of the Endowment's first decade.

The WISCONSIN FILES are arranged alphabetically by organizational name. Most extensive are the minutes, correspondence, constitutions, and publications of the Wisconsin Arts Foundation and Council (later the Wisconsin Arts Council) and the Governor's Council on the Arts, which eventually merged to become the Wisconsin Arts Board. The Wisconsin Arts Council records are quite complete and even cover some periods when Taylor was not in Madison. Files on her work for the University of Wisconsin are fragmentary, however, although they include informative memoranda written for Porter Butts about her work as Wisconsin Union Theater director between 1946 and 1961, and materials on the 1980 University Forum which she planned as director of the Wisconsin Consortium of the Arts. The files on the forum, which featured discussion of the contemporary arts scene, include tape recordings of talks by Nancy Hanks, Richard Schickel, Twyla Tharp, and others.

In 1957 Fannie Taylor was one of a number of members of the National Association of Concert Managers who felt that the special interests of educational institutions could be better served by a separate professional organization. This led to the founding of the Association for College and University Concert Managers at a conference on December 13-14, 1957. In 1969 ACUCM incorporated in Madison, Wisconsin, and the name was changed to Association of College and University Concert Managers, Inc., and by-laws were drawn up and approved. In 1973 the by-laws were amended to allow full membership privileges to non-college members, and the name was changed to Association of College, University, and Community Arts Administrators (ACUCAA). These changes reflected growing cooperation between college and community arts managers.

As ACUCM grew, there was increased emphasis on education through publications and summer workshops. An employment referral service provided assistance to members and to institutions. Several national surveys examined contemporary practices and future needs in the arts administration field. ACUCM was governed by a board of directors and by an extensive committee structure, but a large part of the daily business was conducted through the office of the secretary, later known as the executive director. In 1988 ACUCAA moved its headquarters from Madison, Wisconsin to Washington, D.C.

The second series in the Taylor collection, the ASSOCIATION OF COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY CONCERT MANAGERS RECORDS, are her files as secretary and as editor of the ACUCM Bulletin from 1957 until 1972. Although these files are most likely Taylor's own files rather than the official files of the organization, they provide a comprehensive record of ACUCM activities during its early years. The ACUCM records are arranged as internal administrative records and Taylor's correspondence as secretary and editor. The administrative files consist of the types of records common to most professional organizations: a history, by-laws and articles of incorporation, board of directors' minutes, financial records, several officers' correspondence, a run of ACUCM Bulletins and several publications by Taylor, conference files for the period 1957-1971, and information on several special activities. Taylor's correspondence is arranged alphabetically by institution. It primarily consists of information and literature about campus arts activities sent to her for use in the Bulletin. The extensive file of publications and printed material which she also received in this capacity has been separated to appropriate UW campus libraries. Also filed here is Taylor's correspondence with the National Association of Concert Managers, the parent organization from which ACUCM developed, a ten-year run of its Bulletin, and an analogous run of Arts Management.

A large portion of the NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS RECORDS concerns Mrs. Taylor's role (with Anthony L. Barresi) as historian of the Endowment's first decade. As documented by the collection, this apparently began with her efforts as director of program information during the 1970s to secure a publishable history from writer Rodney Campbell. About this manuscript, which was apparently too long for the Endowment's purposes, the collection includes correspondence and memoranda between Taylor and annotated chapter drafts.

There is no similar correspondence, however, relating to the development of Mrs. Taylor's own book. There is, however, a copy of the published volume and revised pages from the final draft. More importantly, the collection includes transcripts of interviews Mrs. Taylor conducted with Endowment personnel including Livingston L. Biddle Jr., Nancy Hanks, and Roger L. Stevens, as well as her other research files. In her preface, Mrs. Taylor cites these interviews as a major research source. The paper files about the book, which have been greatly reduced to eliminate clippings and other secondary sources that are widely available, are arranged as subject files, program files, and chronological files. The history section of the NEA records also contains a lengthy manuscript about the NEA during the Johnson Administration apparently acquired by Mrs. Taylor at some time for reference purposes.

The smallest section of the NEA records concerns Taylor's work as director and consultant for the music program. Because no information was available concerning the files of Roger Stevens (still in NEA custody in 1989) this section has been retained virtually as received from the donor. Most valuable appear to be the minutes and agenda materials of the Music Panel, the status reports of the Music Program, some information about the Jazz Subcommittee, and Mrs. Taylor's weekly reports.

The Program Information records contain only a few files of an administrative character. Nevertheless, memoranda and her long and informative travel and weekly reports covering the period 1972 to 1976 (as well as copies of a few reports of other NEA administrators) provide an overview of her work. Also included here, although apparently unrelated to Mrs. Taylor's duties, is a copy of a file of Charles Ruttenberg, Endowment counsel, during the administration of Roger Stevens.

The remainder of the collection consists of examples of printed material issued by the Program Information office. Included are general program guidelines, 1966-1979; less complete runs of news releases and publications about specific programs; and a few examples of promotional kits. Copies of annual reports and publications such as Cultural Post, which were intended for a more general audience, have been separated to the Historical Society Library.