Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Collection: Cushing Memorial Library.

Coker, Catherine ; Hall, Hal W.

Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Collection:

Cushing Memorial Library

Main Website: Library portal at <http://library.tamu.edu/portal/index.jsp>

Select "Special & Archival Collections."

5000 TAMU Libraries

College Station, TX 77843-5000

Cushing Library Phone: (979) 845-1961

The Cushing Memorial Library at Texas A&M University houses the special collections of the school, ranging from rare books and manuscripts to film and art media. All collections reflect the varied interests of students, alumni, faculty, staff, and Friends of the University. Altogether the collections comprise some 21,000 linear feet of manuscripts, 170,000 printed volumes, over 50,000 photographs, over 200 original works of art, and hundreds of individual artifacts. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Collection makes up a significant portion of the collection with some 44,800 pieces, including 26,844 monographs, the majority of the English-language magazines, 125 linear feet of manuscripts and author collections, and 40 linear feet of collected papers. In 1970 two A&M librarians--Vicki Anders and Hal Hall--became aware of a science fiction collection being offered at a low price to the library. After conferring with faculty in the English Department and the Engineering Department (where there resided additional aficionados), it was agreed that there would be quite a bit of interest from faculty and students in using the collection, and it was purchased. In the years since, the collection has grown to be one of the larger collections in the United States and one of the most used collections at Cushing Library.

Holdings

Books and Monographs: The strength of the monograph collection is in the novels and collections published from 1960 to the present. The collection contains important historical items such as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, represented by the 1932 third edition, and a first edition of H. G. Wells's Time Machine. The collection includes hard cover editions, trade paperbacks, and mass market paperbacks. Although predominantly in English, representative materials in French, German, and Italian are included. In addition to the fiction, a substantial portion of the collection consists of history and criticism volumes. History volumes discuss classical precursors from ancient Greece and the storytelling practices of ancient peoples through science fiction's inception (as we know it today) in the 1920s. Literary criticism by its nature covers a multitude of topics, but particular themes of criticism include studies of utopias and dystopias, gender studies, and critical companions to various authors and their works. Some groundbreaking works in the field include J. O. Bailey's Pilgrims Through Space and Time and Stanislaw Lem's Fantastyka i Futurologia.

An additional strength of the collection is a focus on anthologies. By the nature of the genre, the predominant fictional form is that of short story, novelette, or novella. In the early part of the twentieth century, many stories made their debut appearances in magazines that would later be either rebound or reprinted into books. More recent anthologies focus on "themed" collections such as alternate history stories, time travel stories, and pretty much any other topic one can think of! In addition, many popular authors now have volumes collecting their shorter works together in one volume as well.

The monograph collection now contains over 26,500 titles.

Periodicals: The periodicals section is a major strength of the collection as a whole. It includes about 90% of the English-language science fiction and fantasy magazines, primarily from 1923 to the present. Notable are the complete runs of Amazing Stories, Astounding/Analog, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and Galaxy, and a near complete run of Weird Tales. The scarce first issues of Amazing, Astounding, and Weird Tales are in the collection. NonEnglish magazines are collected as they can be located. Representative runs of Fiction (France), Robot (Italy), Nueva Dimension (Spain), and Fantastyka (Poland) are included, along with other titles.

Critical serials include runs of Extrapolation, Foundation, Science Fiction Studies, Quarber Merkur, and The Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts. As science fiction criticism and analysis has become more accepted in scholarly circles, titles in the area have grown.

Fanzines are also collected when available, although the collection is not as expansive as other serials. Many fanzines are obtained as part of donors' collections of other items and ephemera such as board games, art work, figurines and the like. Of note are substantially complete runs of Fantasy Commentator, The Acolyte, Luna Monthly, and a large segment of Fantasy Times/Science Fiction Times. Two collections of amateur publishing associations are held: a substantial run of the Southern Amateur Press Alliance (33 linear feet) and a long run of "DAPA-EM," the organ of a mystery writer's amateur press association, are part of the Bill Crider Collection.

Comics are not a focus of the collection, but a substantial collection of comics with science fiction/fantasy themes have been donated by collector Vince Schielack, now occupying some 30 linear feet.

Manuscripts and Author Collections: Cushing Library holds the collected papers of Chad Oliver, Avram Davidson, Martha Wells, Lisa Tuttle, George R. R. Martin, Bill Crider, Joe Lansdale, and Howard Waldrop, among others. The papers of Michael Moorcock, from the mid-1990s to the present are held. In addition there are small manuscript collections of such luminaries as Isaac Asimov, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Avram Davidson, Robert Heinlein, Anne McCaffrey, Robert Silverberg, and Ardath Mayhar. Other collections assemble the various papers and correspondence of Andre Norton, Frederick Pohl, Sam Moscowitz, and more. All collections are available for research, but some require pre-approval by the author.

Library Use

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Collection is one of the most highly used of Cushing's collections. In the 2006-2007 fiscal year, it was the third most used collection in Cushing, with 267 volumes supplied to patrons, and generating large numbers of interlibrary loan copies. The only collections used more highly were Rare Books and school yearbooks.

In person, material can be used only in the Reading Room of Cushing Memorial Library; it does not circulate outside the building. Requests for photocopies or digital scans (when possible--due to the nature of the fragile conditions of some items, requests can be denied) can be made through Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery Systems. All copies are made in house by Library staff.

Books and periodicals in the collection can be searched for in the online catalog LibCat. Finding aids and inventories for the manuscript collections are available online through the Texas Archival Resources Online (TARO) at <http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/index.html>.

Visitors are welcome to stop by during open hours. There are no restricted hours. For those intending to do research, contacting the Library ahead of time guarantees that all requested material will be pulled and ready for their visit. Some collections of living authors require permission to access the collection.

The Library is closed on Saturday afternoons and Sundays.

Some Further Resources

Dyal, Donald. "The Science Fiction Research Collection at Texas A&M University." Science/Fiction Collections: Fantasy, Supernatural, & Weird Tales. Special Collections, Volume 2, Numbers 1/2. New York: Haworth, 1983.

Hall, Hal W., and Vicki Anders. "Announcing the Future: A Formal Presentation of the Science Fiction Research Collection." Texas A&M University Libraries. October 28, 1974.

Science Fiction at Texas A&M University: <http://blogs.tamu.edu/halhall/>

Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Collection: <http://library.tamu.edu/cushing/collectn/lit/science/sci-fi/index.html>