COLLECTIONS

   With sf/fantasy now a subject for academic study, especially in the USA, many major institutional collections have been built up, a process which has supplemented but in no sense supplanted the large number of private collections amassed by fans and scholars. From the first, GENRE SF has tended to be published in formats significantly (and foolishly) slighted in the accession policies of every category of institutional library - from university libraries to libraries of record like the Library of Congress and the British Library; and without private collections much of the research undertaken in recent years would have been impossible to conduct successfully. Some private collections - notably those of Forrest J. ACKERMAN in Los Angeles and Sam MOSKOWITZ in Newark - are extremely well known, extremely large, and accessible to visitors, but they tend not to be thoroughly catalogued. Individual researchers in sf and fantasy almost invariably maintain their own store of material, on a scale rather larger than probably necessary in cognate fields. Entirely typical of such research collections are those held, for instance, by the editors of this volume: John CLUTE with 12,000 items, Peter NICHOLLS with 7000 items, and Associate Editor Brian STABLEFORD with 15,000 items.The strongest library collection in the USA is the J. LLOYD EATON COLLECTION. For important library holdings in other countries, MAISON D'AILLEURS (Switzerland, extremely strong on French sf), MERRIL COLLECTION OF SCIENCE FICTION, SPECULATION AND FANTASY, formerly the Spaced Out Library (Canada), SCIENCE FICTION FOUNDATION (UK) and UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY LIBRARY (Australia). A number of other large institutional collections exist. In the USA these include: the University of Arizona Library; California State University Library at Fullerton (which holds important research material on Philip K. DICK); Dallas Public Library; Louisiana State University Library; University of Louisville Library (very large Edgar Rice BURROUGHS collection); MIT Science Fiction Society Library at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; San Francisco Academy of Comic Art Library; Texas A \& M University Library.Also important to sf researchers are the great libraries of record, such as the US Library of Congress (which, shortsightedly, does not normally catalogue its separately warehoused, inaccessible mass-market paperback fiction) and, in the UK, the British Library and the Bodleian Library. These, however, tend to be weak on ephemera (fanzines, comics, pulp magazines); in some cases their book and magazine collections have suffered depredation through theft.Further data on large sf collections can be found in Anatomy of Wonder: A Critical Guide to Science Fiction: Third Edition (1987) ed Neil BARRON and in Science/Fiction Collections: Fantasy, Supernatural and Weird Tales (1983) ed Hal W. HALL.

   PN/JC