SFWA History Committee
The SFWA History Committee works to help SFWA locate, collect, and preserve SFWA’s history through interviews, archiving documents, SFWA publications, and institutional documents, as well as providing historical information to SFWA Staff and Board Members to ensure institutional memory and facilitate smoother leadership transitions.
Blog posts concerned with SFWA’s History are here.
The SFWA Bulletin Index 1965-2018
- Oral History. Conduct interviews with past SFWA officers to create an oral history of SFWA. [Ongoing]
- Physical Preservation. Aggregate and consolidate physical SFWA materials for preservation (from SFWA officers & members). [Ongoing]
- Digital Preservation. Implement improved records management practices across SFWA’s internal records and committees in accordance with the SFWA Collection Management Policy. [Ongoing]
- Deed of Gift. Revise and finalize Deed of Gift between SFWA and a partner institution. [COMPLETE]
- Collection Management Policy. Develop a collection management policy for SFWA. [COMPLETE; approved by SFWA Board]
Scope of SFWA’s Collections
SFWA does not directly maintain a permanent physical collection, but it partners with academic institutions to ensure the preservation of physical archival materials related to SFWA’s history, activities, and membership. These collections consist of accessioned two- and three-dimensional objects, including published literary works, magazines, manuscripts, personal papers, journal articles, special effects pieces, models, costumes and props, audiovisual recordings, art, photographs, games, press releases, scientific artifacts, autographs, scrapbooks, convention programs, convention-exclusive items and ephemera. SFWA maintains a digital archive of digitized SFWA-related documents in accordance with the priorities laid out in the SFWA Collection Management Policy (CMP). These items have been selected for historical and scholarly research value; other materials in the collection, such as job-related manuals and reference books, may serve as professional resources for SFWA members.
As of late 2023, SFWA’s digital archive remains nascent. The SFWA History Committee seeks to achieve the following digital collection objectives by the end of 2024:
- Create and organize a complete inventory of digitized archival materials currently in SFWA’s possession.
- Ensure at least one complete back-up copy of this digital SFWA archive exists outside SFWA’s Google Drive (i.e., in another secure storage system, such as Dropbox). The back-up copy should remain accessible to the SFWA Board and SFWA History Committee.
- Create and initiate digital preservation standards and procedures for business documents generated and preserved by SFWA (e.g., the SFWA Board, various SFWA committees, etc.). An example of such a standard could include requiring all SFWA officers and committees to annually provide (a) select member(s) of the SFWA History Committee with access to their digital materials so the SFWA History Committee can ensure documents relevant to continuity of operations (or of potential historical value) are duplicated into the SFWA digital archive maintained by the SFWA History Committee. The SFWA Board will be responsible for enforcing adherence to these preservation standards, but may choose to delegate the responsibility to SFWA Operations, the SFWA History Committee, or another Committee or individual as the SFWA Board deems appropriate.
- Develop an actionable plan for hosting unrestricted, archived digital materials online and making them accessible to SFWA membership and, when applicable, outside researchers.
- Develop an actionable plan for hosting restricted, archived digital materials online and ensuring they remain accessible to the current SFWA president, Board, and Committees as deemed appropriate given the nature of their contents. If archival materials are to be designated “restricted”, the History Committee, in consultation with the SFWA Board, must assign and document an appropriate date for lessening, or removing, access restrictions in accordance with the SFWA CMP and its subsequent iterations.
Physical SFWA-related materials are held at the following institutions listed below and are publicly accessible to researchers. For a full breakdown of known SFWA officer-related materials currently archived in these institutions, consult: SF Special Collections
- Boston University
- Bowling Green State University
- California State University, Fullerton
- Eastern New Mexico University
- Emory University
- The Huntington Library
- Indiana University Bloomington
- Northern Illinois University (SFWA’s current designated partner institution)
- San Diego State University
- Southern Mississippi University
- St. Bonaventure University
- Syracuse University
- Temple University libraries
- Texas A&M University
- Toronto Public Library
- University of California, Riverside
- University of Kansas
- University of Maryland Baltimore County
- University of Minnesota
- University of Oregon
- University of Oxford
- University of South Florida
- University of Tulsa
The SFWA History Committee has authority to digitize materials that are being de-accessioned by partner institutions or by SFWA itself, and should maintain an ongoing digitization budget and infrastructure.The SFWA History Committee must seek approval from the SFWA Board should funds be required for the identification, transportation, shipment, temporary storage and preservation, or other collection management-related processes for objects SFWA wishes to have preserved by its partner institutions. Day-to-day maintenance and development of the SFWA collections is overseen by SFWA’s partner institutions in collaboration with the SFWA History Committee. These responsibilities may be delegated to other SFWA and partner institution staff, as necessary. Major decisions, such as formal, significant changes to the scope, focus or purpose of SFWA collections will require approval by the SFWA History Committee before submitting proposed changes to the SFWA for final approval.
