Announcing: The Fan Culture Preservation Project!

[francescacoppa.livejournal.com]

The OTW is pleased to announce that we will be partnering with the University of Iowa to create a Fan Culture Preservation Project.

The Special Collections department at the University of Iowa already has a strong interest in zines, and is making a concerted effort to collect zines and other artifact of fan culture (con programs and flyers, for instance) in order to preserve them and make them accessible to wider popular and research audiences. Iowa is home to a huge (250,000) collection of science fiction and fantasy zines and APA zines, as well as a collection of Riot Grrrl and Underground Music Zines. Media fandom is not as well represented, and they are eager to collect many aspects of fan culture, including all types of fanfiction.

The first major donation brokered by OTW is the Fanzine Archive, a collection of over 3,000 classic zines previously housed in Santa Barbara--over 62 boxes! The OTW was able to help the retiring archivist, Ming Wathne, save and protect this valuable collection. Special Collections is currently in the process of sorting and boxing Ming’s zines. Soon after that is finished, titles in the Fanzine Archive collection will be listed in a finding aid on the Special Collections website. We are currently helping other long time fans donate their collections to the library.

OTW and Iowa are eventually hoping to explore ways to digitize some of these materials, so that fans who want to see them will have access, even if they can't get to Iowa. (We are only talking about works where we have legal clearance; both the University of Iowa and the OTW are concerned about fan privacy first and foremost.) The Special Collections department at the University of Iowa is also willing to photocopy materials for a price of about $.25 cents a page, according to their standard procedures.

Moving? Apartment getting too small? If you have zines you no longer want (or more than you can manage!) but want to know they'll find a good home, please contact the OTW. We can arrange for postage to be paid and for UPS to come to your house to pick up the boxes. You might also consider leaving your collection to the Fan Culture Preservation Project or making arrangements through a friend.

Please help us preserve this important part of fannish history!

ETA: Hey, if you're in the area, check out the Star Trek exhibition curated by our FCPP partners at the University of Iowa! Where Many Have Gone Before: Re-launching Star Trek, on display until July 1, 2009.

Mirrored from an original post on the OTW Blog.

Comments

[francescacoppa.livejournal.com]

We keep hoping to have a representative AT Media west, but it hasn't worked out yet. I didn't know you could just send flyers--is there a table? If you've got contacts there, I'd love to talk to you about strategy. Do they have a blog we could post at, ask them to post at, etc?

I've never attended Mediawest but.....

[morgandawn.livejournal.com]

I don't think mediawest has a blog - they have a mailing list, but they don;t allow anyone to post but the organizers. But here is what contact info I have
Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mediawestcon
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mwcprogram
Website: http://www.mediawestcon.org/mwc30.htm
e-mail: MediaWestCon@aol.com

They do have an Orphan zine table, so that might be one route for a flyer (contact info here: http://www.mediawestcon.org/mwc30.htm)

Re flyers. from the PR report:
"Flyers from non-attending members may be mailed to the MW*C Lansing address. Please mark “FLYERS” on the outside of the package."

They also have a fanzine reading room - possible place for flyers?

and last, they have a spot on the Progress Reports where people can make announcements

przed (a fellow vidder) does attend the convention fromtime to time and may know people. kathy resch (fanzine dealer) is also a regular attendee. I'll post in my blog asking anyone who goes to mediawest/has contacts that they can contact you direct?

considering Mediawest is one of *the* largest fanzine conventions, this is a great investment of the OTW's time/energy

Re: I've never attended Mediawest but.....

[francescacoppa.livejournal.com]

OK, seriously, I'm about two minutes away from recruiting you for Open Doors! Want to run this thing? (*opens back of car door! Look! Candy!*) Seriously, though; we're really starting to take off, and I will have to build a team soon between this and the Geocities Rescue project.

And yes, this is awesome information, thank you: at a minimum, we will send flyers and maybe posters and buttons too; maybe we could get them to put up a poster in the fanzine reading room.

(I have to say, dropping the ball on MediaWest is partly my fault: as an academic, end of May is typically when I schedule my annual nervous breakdown, so I'm not at my sharpest! *g*)

Re: I've never attended Mediawest but.....

[morgandawn.livejournal.com]

hey, we talked about this. I can only handle small discrete tasks with long deadlines and where I can work alone and at my own pace. being on permament medical leave sucks.

and don;t worry about mediawest - there will be one next May and this gives you months to find someone to help bring the project to attendees. you will need a rep at the convention I think - there is a lot of concern and questions about archiving fanzines. I am so glad Ming's libraray was preserved. I used it a few times