The Here And Now

First up - my numbers are pulled from memory and are most likely off. By a lot.  

My friend MPH and I spent last year helping an East Coast fan process the 1700+ zine collection that she had inherited from 3 older fans.  This is still ongoing. 

We identified every zine that needed scanning (a lot more than we thought there would be), then worked with the universities who are still accepting zines (so few now, see below) to find homes.  Un-scanned zines were shipped to my friend MPH for scanning (around 700), then onwards to their destinations. We even recruited another University (Michigan State) to take a few unwanted zines.  The collection owner is still in the process of shipping and MPH is still scanning. After all is done, the fan may have 400 zines that no university wants but will offer up to fans.

I also received  a surprise donation (door to door delivery)  of 180 zines over the summer. Those were also sent to MPH for scanning, then onwards to Texas A&M University.

In the midst of this I realized I had waited too long to donate my remaining zine collection - Iowa will not allow me to add any new items - even non duplicates or items they do not have. Texas A&M University would only take non-duplicated items and they already have the zines in my remaining collection. I shipped a small amount of zines  to the UK K/S Project. I smile every time I think of my zines  - with my name lightly penciled on the inside covers like a dog-eared copy of a favorite novel - wandering the world.

And finally, the escapade Fanzine Library was handed over to franzeska for safekeeping. I scanned a few of those zines myself but I could not scan the Velobound ones since I lack the machine to put them back together. She plans to keep the Library intact as a collection.  I will most likely send my remaining fanzine collection over to her as well.

So there we have it - there are (or were)  4-5 universities in the US who  collect fanzines.

Current Status

• Iowa - will not take anything. Or maybe they will? My collection is sadly closed to me.
• TAMU - only if not already in their collection
• UC Riverside - only sci-fi and fantasy (sorry other TV and movie fandoms) and only if not duplicated
• Bowling Green (Ohio) - ????Have not spoken to them in a while, need to check
• Michigan State - only well known, recent fandoms (Buffy, Harry Potter, Z-Files) and they can only accept a few each year

There are other places listed on the Open Doors website

This is not to discourage fans from reaching out to any of the places listed on the Open Door's website to find homes for their zines. In fact,  your collection may fit into gaps that a university needs to fill  or they might have some other special interest.

Also, if you have Star Trek fanzines, KS Fanzine Library is still active. In the US they are rebuilding the library, the EU is still up and running. And if you have Beauty and the Beast fanzines they have a lending library. Blake's 7 fans have their own Discord server and trade fanzines. There is a small 300 person Facebook group for fanfiction fanzines (buy and sell).  Dr Who fanzines were historically light on fanfiction, trending more towards essays and newsletters, but there is an active 1000 person Dr Who fanzine collector Facebook group.

And  no matter what - we'd love to hear about your collection  - there are thousands of zines that have never been scanned and you might just have the missing issues. Or you might have a better copy or one with the missing pages. We are always looking for newsletters, letterzines, APAs, flyers and convention program guides - the bits and bobs that show how we connected with one another before online communities

What happens to the scans?
They are used to support 3 projects:
1. The Sandy Hereld Memorial Digitized Fanzine Collection at Texas A&M University (mainly limited onsite access, deposited with publisher permission)
2. Open Door's Fanzine Scan Hosting Project
3. The Fanfiction Fanzine Collection on the Internet Archive (zines uploaded with publisher permission).

Can I Help?
Yes, you can! If you have  zines, email us a list of the titles (we need Fandom and Titles). If you want to find homes for them, we ask that you allow us to scan ones that we do not already have.  If you want to hold onto them, we still would love to see the list and borrow some  for non-destructive scanning (we pay for the shipping).

What is our most urgent need?
We need project managers to help us inventory and add meta data about the zines we have scanned. We cannot recruit any volunteers until we have at least 2 fans willing to give a 1 year commitment to getting the inventory started. Right now our team is small (3 people) and we're all hands on deck scanning and preserving. Save first, count later.

Posted in full at: http://ift.tt/1FqBYAQ at September 05, 2015 at 11:38PM

10,000 zines and counting: a library's quest to save the history of fandom | The Verge:

The Hevelin project is digitizing science fiction fanzines from the 1930s to the 1950s (”the rise of zines and the Golden Age of science fiction”) .

I don’ t know if they are still looking for volunteers to help with the indexing, but they have a tumblr FAQ 

 “Fanzines feel almost designed to resist archival. “Creators were working with what they had, often within pretty tight budgets, and producing fantastic images with relatively cheap materials,” Hampton tells The Verge. Many of Hevelin’s zines were hectographed — copied by pressing paper to an inked gelatin pad. The medium produced brilliant purples and blues that can still be seen in some of the illustrations. But it favored cheap, highly acidic paper, and images could fade within hours under direct light. “There are rusty staples, tape — all these material things that make a fanzine a fanzine are also what make them difficult to preserve.” Each zine is photographed page by page as quickly as possible, supported by a specially designed cradle, until it can go back in storage.“

Tags:science fiction fanzines, fanzines, digital preservation, DWCrosspost
Tumblr post (this is likely a reblog, and may have more pictures over there)