This project demonstrates proof of concept for a relatively inexpensive approach to remediation of large, complex, and incompletely described legacy archival collections. Supervised by a professional archivist, a half-time graduate assistant from the University of Illinois iSchool will create a complete, standards-based finding aid for the Merwin Papers, incorporating information from extant partial legacy inventories. Undergraduate student workers will conduct a preservation re-housing project at scale, replacing decades-old boxes, folders, and enclosures, and documenting pressing additional conservation needs as they do so. At the close of this project, the W.S. Merwin Papers will be stabilized and truly publicly accessible for research, outreach, and instruction for the first time since the initial acquisition of the papers in 1984. Merwin’s numerous intersections between literature and environmental activism are especially relevant today, as both the arts and sciences grapple with climate change in an increasingly hostile political environment for that work.