This article summarizes the New York State Historical Documents Inventory as experienced at Brooklyn Historical Society. The archives and manuscripts, dating from the seventeenth century and surveyed by the Historical Documents Inventory in the 1980s, were cataloged as Historical Documents Inventory/Research Libraries Information Network records but failed to become incorporated into in-house electronic records, which affected access. Physical and intellectual control of the archives and manuscripts was reestablished, 2004-2007, following the reopening of the society's 1881 Brooklyn Heights building in 2003. The library reopened to researchers in 2007. In this article, the author offers suggestions about establishing universal access to materials housed in the libraries of underfunded institutions subjected to building renovations and decisions by executive resource allocators as well as access to a rich array of unsurveyed and, thus, uncataloged, materials held in historic houses and museums. (Contains 7 notes and 1 figure.)