Tag Archives: library

2019 Library Exhibit in Support of the 4th Annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium, Celebrating 90 Years of Analog SF

L to R: Jason Ellis, Emily Hockaday, and Trevor Quachri in front of the Library's large display case.

L to R: Jason Ellis, Emily Hockaday, and Trevor Quachri in front of the Library’s large display case.

On December 3, 2019, Prof. Jason Ellis, Analog Science Fiction and Fact Editor Trevor Quachri, and Analog Managing Editor Emily Hockaday installed library exhibits in support of the upcoming 4th Annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium on Thursday, Dec. 12 [watch videos of the symposium here].

Librarian Morris Hounion and the City Tech Library’s Exhibit Committee were kind enough to offer us all four entrance displays–the large display outside the library and the three smaller displays inside the library’s entrance.

The exhibits were a collaboration between City Tech and Analog Science Fiction and Fact. City Tech Student Design Intern Julie Bradford created the symposium poster, Prof. Ellis designed posters on the City Tech Science Fiction Collection and the history of the City Tech Science Fiction Symposium, Analog designed posters highlighting the symposium speakers, a timeline of the magazine’s long history, and Analog supplied the cover artwork that fills in the background of each display case. Artifacts in each case were pulled from the City Tech Science Fiction Collection, including the Jan. 1934 issue of Astounding.

Main Display case highlighting the 4th Annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium in celebration of 90 years of Analog SF.

Main Display case highlighting the 4th Annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium in celebration of 90 years of Analog SF.

Display case highlighting the published work of speakers at the 4th annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium.

Display case highlighting the published work of speakers at the 4th annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium.

Display case highlighting the history of the annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium.

Display case highlighting the history of the annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium.

Display case highlighting the City Tech Science Fiction Collection.

Display case highlighting the City Tech Science Fiction Collection.

Another Round of City Tech Science Fiction Collection Inventorying

 

Kate Wilhelm autograph

On August 6-8, Prof. Jason W. Ellis continued to inventory the shelved novels of the City Tech Science Fiction Collection. Since the last inventory session, he spent 20 hours at home typing in the author, title, and publisher information for the remaining novels based on the photographic inventory that he made after the collection had been originally shelved. While some titles were incomplete but could be gleaned through database research at the ISFDB or Worldcat, other titles were obscured in the photographic inventory, so these had to be seen in person. For all of the remaining titles, the publication date or copyright date (depending on what information the publisher was inclined to include) had to be found in each open book. This meant that even though all originally shelved novels are recorded by author’s name, title, and publisher, the publication date and any other relevant information (edition, marginalia, inscriptions, etc.) have to be recorded in person. During the nine hours in the archives this week, Prof. Ellis recorded the dates from 26 shelves of books bringing the total shelves remaining to be recorded to about 30. This should be accomplished during the coming academic year.

Also during this time, Prof. Ellis gave a tour of the collection to David B. Smith, Dean of the School of Professional Studies, and he met City Tech’s new Collections Management Librarian, Wanett Clyde.

 

Prof. Aaron Barlow Donates Philip K. Dick Books to the City Tech Science Fiction Collection

Barlow

Prof. Aaron Barlow donated a considerable collection of Philip K. Dick novels, anthologies, and scholarship to the City Tech Science Fiction Collection on 22 March 2018.

At a glance, the 124-item donation includes all of Dick’s Science Fiction and posthumously published mainstream fiction. Additionally, the donation includes a lot of PKD research and criticism.

Some of the standout items donated include:

  • Philip K. Dick’s Underwood Miller 5-Volume, Boxed Set of Collected Short Stories (Vol. 1, Beyond Lies the Wub; Vol. 2, Second Variety; Vol. 3, The Father-Thing; Vol. 4, The Days of Perky Pat; and Vol. 5, The Little Black Box)
  • Philip K. Dick’s Gregg Press Publications (Eye in the Sky, Vulcan’s Hammer, The Zap Gun, The World Jones Made, and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch)
  • Philip K. Dick’s Gollancz Edition of Galactic Pot-Healer
  • Philip K. Dick’s Ziesing Edition of The Dark Haired Girl
  • Lawrence Sutin’s In Pursuit of VALIS: Selections from the Exegesis
  • Gregg Rickman’s To the High Castle: Philip K. Dick, A Life 1928-1962
  • Gregg Rickman’s Philip K. Dick In His Own Words
  • Gregg Rickman’s Philip K. Dick: The Last Testament
  • Paul William’s Only Apparently Real
  • Patricia Warrick’s Mind in Motion: The Fiction of Philip K. Dick
  • Patricia Warrick and Martin Greenberg’s Robots, Androids, and Mechanical Oddieis: The Science Fiction of Philip K. Dick

City Tech Library Exhibits on Science Fiction, Interdisciplinarity, and Samuel R. Delany

Library exhibits on Samuel R. Delany and the 2nd Annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium.

LIbrary display on the City Tech Science Fiction Collection.

Prof. Jason W. Ellis installed three window displays in the entrance to City Tech’s Ursula C. Schwerin Library, where the City Tech Science Fiction Collection is housed. When entering the library, on the right are two displays: the first is on the upcoming 2nd Annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium on Extrapolation, Interdisciplinarity, and Learning, and the second is an Author Spotlight on Samuel R. Delany, this year’s keynote speaker for the symposium. On the left side, adjacent to the circulation desk, is a display on the City Tech Science Fiction Symposium. In addition to designing posters for these displays and showing magazine covers from the collection, each exhibit has artifacts from the collection. Samuel R. Delany’s exhibit features magazines in which his fiction appears. These exhibits will be up until January 2018.

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.

Library Window Exhibit for the City Tech Science Fiction Collection

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Prof. Jason Ellis installed a magazine cover and science fiction artifact exhibit in the front window space of the City Tech Library. He took photos of magazine covers that related to the historical and current work represented by the schools and departments on campus. Then, he compiled these into large collages (standardizing each cover to be 9.5″ tall), which Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences Justin Vazquez-Poritz had printed. Prof. Ellis cut the magazine covers out of the collages, and with the help of masonry guide lines, hung nearly 70 magazine cover prints on the exhibit space wall with pushpins. He created the large poster to the left side of the exhibit to describe the collection. In the front of the exhibit space, Prof. Ellis displayed a historical selection of artifacts–magazines from the collection (Amazing Stories, Astounding, Galaxy, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction) and novels/collections from his personal collection (Shelley’s Frankenstein, Ellison’s Dangerous Visions, Sargent’s Women of Wonder, and Sterling’s Mirrorshades). The exhibit will run from the last week of November 2016 until the end of the semester.