Watch for coming poll

[kinzel]

I'm working on a poll ... will post it here sometime this week.

Also, I wonder if anyone reading this has ever *used* a university or college based science fiction collection. School, personal interest, professional research, a place to hide... anything?

Comments

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

I was a very active member of The Stony Brook Science Fiction Forum (http://sf4m.org/forum/portal.php). Borrowed books, worked in the library, was even an officer for a period of time. Made a great many friends there, had a lot of good times.

Although as a student organization, that may no be what you're looking for.

[barsukthom.livejournal.com]

My school was too 'relevant' to have an SF section in their library, although they had a separate Childrens'/YA collection that had several fine titles in which I spent many an hour.

[klingonguy.livejournal.com]

Back when I was a professor in Illinois I tapped several such collections via inter-library loan.

[sleary.livejournal.com]

My library has the sort of SF collection where you can't remove the books, so I've only used it once or twice, when the book just wasn't available any other way.

university based science fiction collection

[(Anonymous)]

I tried the catalog for the University of Maryland, College Park. None of the dozen classic and current authors/titles (including of course Lee and Miller)were in the collection. When the undergrad library was repurposed most of the fiction seemed to disappear from campus. I buy or use the fairly pathetic, underfunded, county library system.

Re: university based science fiction collection

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

At the U of Md. you need to get to UMBC to see science fiction ... Zelazny scripts, rare books,
ancient fanzines ...

[kalimeg.livejournal.com]

Yes, at the University of Kansas Special Collections, to finish reading the rest of Heinlein. There is one story that is cataloged as his in both Index to the Magazines and in the Contento Index that turned out to be Poul Anderson's.

:)

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

And you know this because the magazine said so? Interesting ...

[jilltanith.livejournal.com]

As a grad student at the University of Washington in Seattle, I spent many happy hours reading the bound volumes of science fiction magazines . . . not a formal "science fiction collection", though.

[sethb.livejournal.com]

If you include MITSFS, the answer is certainly that lots of people have.

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

Seth --
haven't a clue about MITSFS and what it can see or use. I'm interested though in actual use of materials "collected" by colleges and universities, having had an interesting discussion questioning the "right" of scholars to "steal and seal" original material from the rightful domain of the fans.

[sethb.livejournal.com]

MITSFS is the MIT Science Fiction Society. It holds the world's largest open-shelf collection of SF.

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

The society does? I was looking for college and university libraries -- not sure how that works if the the society is funded by the school -- does the school provide librarians and determine acquisitions?

[johnhawkinson.livejournal.com]

MITSFS is a student-run group and collection. MIT doesn't provide librarians, but students volunteer and hold regular hours. MIT couldn't really be said to provide funding, other than that the student government provides some amount of funding to MIT's diverse array of hundreds of student groups (from dance teams to literary magazines to cultural groups), and MITSFS gets some of that funding. But its primary funding is from annual membership dues from patrons who want borrowing privileges.

[sethb.livejournal.com]

The school doesn't provide librarians or determine acquisitions. It does provide some funding (basically space).

[scaleslea.livejournal.com]

In my Junior High and High School days, since I had no money and my dad was on the faculty, I'd borrow Sci-Fi books from the Fairmont State College University. I wouldn't say their collection was extensive, but it was always easy for me to find something I hadn't read.

When I went to college at Auburn University, I never really spent any time in the library, despite living within a trebuchet shot of it. Although I do remember going there and looking up Douglas Adams books, and looking for the sequels to the Wizard of Oz.

Doc

College SF collections

[(Anonymous)]

When I was in high school, someone willed their collection of SF&F to Cal State Fullerton with the requirement that it be available for all to read. I don't remember if the books could be checked out. (I didn't have a CSF library card.) I spent many hours reading books there until I graduated college and moved out of the area. They had what I felt was a good collection and were actively trying to increase it as of the 1980s.

Janet B., a frequent lurker

[magda-vogelsang.livejournal.com]

I read books from the sf club library (closet really) at Mt. Holyoke while I was going there, FWIW.

[ariaflame.livejournal.com]

Murdoch University in Western Australia has one of the largest SF&F collections in Australia. I have definitely used it for personal stuff, and possibly even the odd essay when I was still an undergrad.

[otaku-tetsuko.livejournal.com]

I inducted two staunch FOL's because of the SF/F class I took at the local junior college, does that count? I believe the teacher added CoH to the curriculum list....

[isabellag.livejournal.com]

Might one be permitted to ask... what would you be thinking of hiding?

US Lib. of Congress c. 1951 SF

[(Anonymous)]

In my HS years in the early 50s I used to go to the Lib. of Congress after school and request the bound volumes of ASF that they had from the early 40s once I discovered the call number. I could only read them in the reading room with the big dome.
My understanding is that this is no longer possible. Sigh...
ART PARHAM

Not really a collection

[(Anonymous)]

Well, neither Boston University nor University of Kentucky at Lexington had collections per se, but Boston had lots of used bookstores and the UK library had some decent SF, even though it wasn't a collection. I'll never be so poor as when I was a grad student.

even as a bookstore owner!
Lauretta@ConstellationBooks