The University of Iowa is partnering with Naomi Novik’s Organization for Transformative Works to create a Fan Culture Preservation Project. This will be something like the fanzine archive at UC Riverside, and I’m guessing that the two groups will collaborate a lot. I’m rather better disposed towards this sort of thing than fannish collections because a) they are not dependent on private individuals and b) they are more easily accessible to academics. Also Kevin and I have many, many boxes full of old fanzines, convention publications and the like that are cluttering up our storage locker. So I’m pleased to see this happen.
It is a rare wind, however, that causes no outrage to blow. The blog post announcing the project has attracted some interesting comments from people who are horrified that their fanzines might be collected and studied. Somewhere on LiveJournal, the F-word will be being used.
I am careful in what I post on LJ and on the web in general. I know I have no privacy on the web, so It affects what I say.
Some people really don’t understand what “published” means, do they?
That’s a really, really weird reaction — as if they thought that they had control of something that they’d published and distributed (out into the world, to roam free) and that only now was there the chance of “outsiders” seeing it.
It also gives a whole new spin to the idea of “fanzine control numbers” — if you really want to control who reads your ‘zine, you need to create them like a Hollywood shooting script, on non-reproducible paper with a unique tracking number for each copy.
I have to admit, even now, that I really don’t understand that kind of fan.
I’m with Andrew – I’m very confused about why anyone would object to a fanzine they distributed freely being collected – how… odd.
I’m thrilled that there’s gonna be an archive not dependent on one individual’s ability to keep it, store it, make it available, etc.
It is to laugh.
Both the Eaton Collection at UC Riverside and the Horvat Collection (already part of the U of Iowa small collections) include hundreds of thousands of fanzines. (well over 200k items each).
And they’re whining about Ming’s collection being donated? Only a few dozen boxes?
What’s really strange, though?
The OTW_News LJ community post responses are uniformly positive.