Eller had met and befriended Bradbury while teaching at the United States Air Force Academy, which was hosting a science fiction conference.

[3] The center has recreated Bradbury's basement office as it evolved in his home in Los Angeles, including original furniture such as his writing desk, paint table, bookshelves, and chairs.

Highlights among the broader collection of papers and artifacts include a number of national awards; a Mars flag that rode in the Space Shuttle Discovery; a replica of the Nautilus from the 1954 Walt Disney production of Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, sculpted by Disney Imagineers and gifted to Bradbury in the 1960s; the prop jar used in the Alfred Hitchcock Hour adaptation of Bradbury's short story "The Jar;" and an asbestos-bound edition of Fahrenheit 451.

[1] Festival 451indy, organized by the center, is an annual celebration of the humanities intended to encourage lifelong learning through a variety of public programs, collaborative workshops, performances, and other events throughout Indianapolis.

In 2024, for example, the festival included such events as a multi-lingual read-aloud on the theme of "Here There Be Monsters"; a film screening of 1953's The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, based on Bradbury's 1951 short story, "The Fog Horn"; and a writer's lecture with Daniel Kraus.