The City Tech Science Fiction Collection is held in the Archives and Special Collections of the Ursula C. Schwerin Library (Library Building, L543C, New York City College of Technology, 300 Jay Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201).
The City Tech Science Fiction Collection contains over 600-linear-feet of near-complete runs of the major science fiction magazines, and an extensive holding of science fiction anthologies, novels, and scholarship. Additionally, there are significant selections of fringe texts, including mystery, horror, and the supernatural.
The City Tech Science Fiction Collection is a comprehensive collection of science fiction magazines and fiction, and includes rare books and first editions that occupies more than 600-linear feet of shelf space. Notably, the collection includes more than 80 of the most famous magazine runs, including:
- Analog Science Fiction and Fact (1930-present), the longest continually published sf genre magazine
- Asimov’s Science Fiction (1977-present), a professional magazine that began in 1977
- The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (1949-present), the second oldest continually publishing science fiction magazines in the country
The City Tech Science Fiction Collection is a working collection available for class visits and scholarly research. Unfortunately, access to the collection is constrained by available staff to meet with visitors and the availability of the archive’s adjacent classroom, which is unavailable when a regularly scheduled class is meeting there. Use the following information to plan a visit to the collection:
- If you would like to inquire about the collection for research purposes, please read the library’s access policy for the City Tech Science Fiction Collection and contact Assistant Professor and Collections Management and Archives Librarian Wanett Clyde by phone at 718-260-5496 or email wclyde@citytech.cuny.edu.
- Search the entire inventory with this spreadsheet, which contains four separate sheets (look at the bottom of the page that opens on this link) for magazines, scholarly books and anthologies, academic journals, and novels.
- Or download and search PDFs of the inventory:
- Browse the collection’s shelves with this photographic inventory. The first image corresponds to shelf 116.1.1 on this sketch of the collection’s shelves. The photos continue down one stack and then begin at the top of the next stack. Shelf locations are formatted in this way: row.stack.shelf. The rows are numbered, the stack number increases from aisle to wall, and the shelf number increases from top to bottom.
- In addition to the SF Collection, the Ursula C. Schwerin Library has SF and SF scholarship in its circulating holdings, which can be searched with the library catalog here.
- Refer to the links under “Research” on the Resources page to aid in your research by cross-referencing with other SF databases, such as the Internet Speculative Fiction Database.
- Laura Schmidt’s Using Archives: A Guide to Effective Research, published by the Society of American Archivists, is a useful resource for planning a trip to any archival collection, including the City Tech Science Fiction Collection.
