Category Archives: updates

Pandemic Donations Shelved in the Archives

22 boxes of donated material

In the previous post, we finally were able to relocate all of the materials donated to the City Tech Science Fiction Collection during the pandemic into the Library’s Archives space. On Thursday, April 20, 2023, Prof. Jason Ellis was able to shelve the material thanks to the efforts of Prof. Wanett Clyde and the librarian staff to open 30 shelves for the additional material.

Jason cleaning each shelf of accumulated dust.

The first step involved cleaning each shelf of accumulated dust and letting it dry before shelving any material.

Jason shelving material

Then, each box was opened in turn and its contents shelved in the stacks. The primary objective was to get the materials out of the boxes and onto the shelves, because some of the boxes had been damaged during shipping and the materials were exposed and/or smashed together. With limited time and uncertainty about how much material there was of each type, a strategy was adopted to put like materials together: hard cover fiction, paperback fiction, and periodicals/fanzines/ephemera. Later, a photographic inventory will be made of each shelf and each item will be entered into the finding aid.

newly shelved donations newly shelved donations

Thank you again to Charlie Seelig, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, City Tech Professor Lucas Bernard and his father Kenneth Bernard, the experimental playwright and English professor whose materials were donated, and Emeritus Professor of English at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi and former president of the Science Fiction Research Association David Mead!

Pandemic Donations Moving Day

Professors Wanett Clyde and Jason Ellis standing in front of the boxes of newly donated material for the City Tech Science Fiction Collection.

On Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2023, Professor and Collections Management Librarian Wanett Clyde and English Department Professor Jason Ellis moved donated materials acquired during the first phase of the pandemic into the City Tech Science Fiction Collection’s space in the Archives and Special Collections of the Ursula C. Schwerin Library.

During the pandemic, we received a lot of new material for the City Tech Science Fiction Collection, including magazines, novels, collections, academic journals, and monographs. These materials were donated by Charlie Seelig (~20 boxes of EVERYTHING), Analog Science Fiction and Fact (~4 boxes of magazines from their old office space), City Tech Professor Lucas Bernard (2 boxes of material that belonged to his father Kenneth Bernard, the experimental playwright and English professor), and Emeritus Professor of English at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi and former president of the Science Fiction Research Association David Mead (1 box of Jack Vance materials), The Special Collections and Archives in the City Tech Library unfortunately were unable to open enough shelf space for these materials, so Wanett and Jason stored everything in their offices–with most of it being in Jason’s office (see below).

Jason Ellis' office space full of donated SF material in boxes.

This semester, however, Wanett was able to work with library staff to open up additional shelf space in the archives for the donated materials (in the photo below, the background stacks are the City Tech Science Fiction Collection).

Four empty stacks adjacent to the City Tech Science Fiction Collection in the Special Collections and Archives Room of the Library.

On Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2023, Jason coordinated with Wanett to begin moving the materials one cart load at a time into the archives.

It took about two-and-a-half-hours to move 22 boxes of material into the archives. The first few cart loads were successful–an elevator ride from the fifth floor of Namm to the fourth floor, and then walk to the fourth floor of the Library Building to take the service elevator up to the fifth floor of the Library Building and a short walk to the archives room. Unfortunately, the service elevator died before the last load was delivered, so Jason toted those 40 pound boxes one at a time on the last leg of the journey. Now, all of the material has been relocated to the archives room.

22 boxes of donated SF material for the City Tech Science Fiction Collection.

The next phase of integrating the materials will involve unboxing and shelving like materials on the available shelf space, which will be followed by a photographic inventory of each shelf and inventorying the items into the finding aid, which as we know from past experience, will take the most time and energy. However, Jason has plans to bring his Professional and Technical Writing students in his Spring 2023 Information Architecture class to the archives to perform some of the inventorying work as part of a discussion of database construction, categorization, and metadata.

City Tech Science Fiction Collection Inventory Continues

Jason Ellis, Lavelle Porter, and Jessica Roman

L to R: Jason Ellis, Lavelle Porter, and Jessica Roman

From July 9 to July 11, City Tech faculty and students continued to inventory the City Tech Science Fiction Collection. Over the last two years, we inventoried the 4000+ magazines and 1700 monographs and anthologies. This year’s goal is to complete the finding aid database with the remaining scholarly journals and novels.

On July 9, Prof. Jason Ellis spent three hours in the archives and an hour at home entering information into the collection’s finding aid for all of the scholarly journals.

Prof. Laura Westengard

Laura Westengard

On July 10, Profs. Laura Westengard and Jason Ellis cataloged almost 300 novels over three hours.

Lavelle Porter and Julia Roman

L to R: Lavelle Porter and Jessica Roman

On July 11, Profs. Lavelle Porter, Lucas Kwong, and Jason Ellis, and City Tech student Jessica Roman cataloged about 350 novels over four hours.

Lucas Kwong

Lucas Kwong

Over these three days, we accomplished an inventory of two-and-a-half bookcases, which leaves eleven-and-a-half bookcases to inventory.

Video Tour of the City Tech Science Fiction Collection

On Friday, Dec. 9, 2016, Prof. Jason Ellis recorded video footage of the archival space that houses the City Tech Science Fiction Collection. Over the following weekend, he wrote a script describing the video footage, and recorded a voice over for the video footage based on the script. Using Apple’s iMovie, he added titles to the video footage and uploaded the rendered video file to YouTube. You can watch the video embedded below.

City Tech Science Fiction Magazine Collection Finding Aid Completed

excel-collection

Using the inventory data generated over the past several weeks, Prof. Jason W. Ellis created a temporary finding aid for magazine issues held in the City Tech Science Fiction Collection.

Available in PDF format here (sfcollection-magazines-inventory.xlsx.pdf) and linked on the Library/Collection page, it is organized alphabetically by title, publication date, volume/number (when needed), and shelf location (row.stack–aisle to wall.shelf–top to bottom). This finding aid supplements the photographic inventory of each shelf’s holdings in the collection. It indicates that there are 4,147 magazines on the shelves (the collection’s Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock Magazines remain boxed while additional shelf space is found).

In the coming months, Prof. Ellis intends to create other temporary finding aids for the monographs, journals, anthologies, and novels in the collection, and those will be made available here when completed.

Inventory Completed for the Shelved Magazine Portion of the Collection

On July 21, Prof. Jason W. Ellis spent two-and-a-half hours in the library’s archives completing the magazine portion of the City Tech Science Fiction Collection’s inventory. It took 17 hours total to inventory over 4,000 items!

This session included The Twilight Zone, Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Omni, Other Times, and Last Wave. Now that the magazine inventory has been completed (at least for what is currently shelved–Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock are still boxed due to limited shelf space), a temporary finding aid will be linked on the Library/Collection page and a notification will be made here on the blog when it is available.

Inventory Continues to Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine

On July 20, Prof. Jason W. Ellis spent two hours in the library’s archives inventorying the magazine portion of the City Tech Science Fiction Collection. This part of the inventory included Fantastic Story, Science Fiction Age, two mislaid Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction issues, Fantasy Book, Fantastic Novels, Startling Stories, and Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. Some magazine covers from this day’s inventory are included below.

Collection Inventory Continues to Fantastic

On July 14, 2016, Prof. Jason Ellis spent two-and-a-half hours in the archives inventorying the magazine portion of the City Tech Science Fiction Collection. He completed Analog and row 115, and moved to row 114 to catalog Thrilling Wonder Stories, Science Fiction Plus, Vertex, Future Science Fiction, and Fantastic Stories. The current inventory is over 3000 items. He would be further along, but it takes more time to inventory the older pulps, many of which are missing spines or the date portion of the spine. In most of these cases, he uses the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (this is one among several important research tools, which are also linked on this site’s Resources page) to look up issue information based on the cover story instead of pulling and opening the issue, which could damage the magazines before they are properly stabilized. Nevertheless, the end of the magazines is in sight! (Then, the larger portion of the inventory can begin.) Below are images of some covers from the inventory session.

Collection Inventory Continues to Analog

On July 13, 2016, Prof. Jason Ellis spent two hours in the library archives today inventorying an extra shelf of the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, a variety of large format magazines, OMNI, and Analog. He is at the end of row 115, and hopes to turn the corner onto 114 tomorrow or next week. The inventory has over 2,500 items now. Below are some covers that he spied during the inventory.

Collection Inventory Continues to Astounding Science Fiction

Photo by Sean Scanlan.

Photo by Sean Scanlan.

On July 7, 2016, Prof. Jason Ellis spent two hours in the library archives continuing the inventory. Prof. Sean Scanlan, editor of NANO: New American Notes Online, stopped by to see the collection and snapped the photo to the left. As you can see, he has progressed from the back wall to about halfway down the first row of SF magazines and the inventory has surpassed 2000 entries! This day’s efforts focused on Astounding Science Fiction, Beyond, Space Science Fiction, and Science Fiction Stories. During the inventory, he took photos of some interesting magazine covers included in the gallery below.