[SFFLibraries-L] Mulcahy article / SF in ARLs

[Leslie Kay Swigart]

Congratulations!!! (somewhat belated) to Kevin P. Mulcahy for his article:

"Science Fiction Collections in ARL Academic Libraries." _College & 
Research Libraries_ 67.1 (2006 January): 15-34.


Using a core list of 200 titles (novels) published 1950-2000 which 
either won SF awards (Clarke, BSFA, Campbell, Dick, Hugo, Nebula, Locus, 
Tiptree) or were listed on 'best' lists (Evans/Mullen; Barron in AoW, 
Pringle), he checked the holdings of 112 Association of Research 
Libraries *academic* libraries, excluding only 2 French-language 
Canadian university libraries.

Galvanized by a footnote that noted that were he an ARL library his 
personal collection would rank fourteenth in the list, I did a quick off 
the top of my head check and I think I have at least 105 of these 200 
titles which would put me in with the ARL trio of at the 51st rank. I 
didn't include my spouse's collection in the count which might make us 
collectively rank somewhat higher as his tastes in SF do not entirely 
overlap mine.

Then, in the bits and pieces of 'free' time when I was at the reference 
desk and not assisting any of our students, I checked the CSULB catalog 
against the list. I'm also in the first year of a doctoral program so 
had *no* time to do this as a freebie on my own non-existent 
free--ha!--time as I might have done in my carefree pre-doctoral-madness 
days. Thus it's taken me a month since this issue of C&RL landed in my 
mailbox to finish.

While not a powerhouse SF collection like the top ten of Mulcahy's list 
which have 80+% of the list (UC Riverside; UTxAustin; Texas A&M U; U 
Wisc, Madison; Emory; BYU; SUNY Buffalo; UNC/Chapel Hill; Michigan St U; 
and Ohio St U), we do have SF in our general collection, an SF 
recreational reading collection, The Charles E. Masback SF Collection 
(generally mass market paperbacks), and our David N. Samuelson SF&F 
Magazine Collection (mostly 1940s-1995; DNS is one of our emeritus 
English faculty who is still teaching and is teaching his SF class this 
semester).

The numbers for CSULB look like this:

In the General Book Stacks: 88 of the 200 titles
In the Masback SF Coll'n: 119 of the 200 titles

In either the GBS or Masback: 143 of the 200 titles, or 71.5% which 
would tie us with the U of Georgia for a respectable 14th place.

Checking the list was good for me as it brought to my attention that all 
of our copies of _Neuromancer_ of which we used to have several, are now 
gone, lost, strayed, stolen, or worn out! Of the first 100 titles we 
lack only 10, so the other 47 titles we lack fall in the second 100 
which also are held by less than 50% of the ARL libraries (50% holding 
of the 200 titles comes at the 99th, 100th, and 101st titles).

Have any other SFFLibraries-L'ers had a chance to check their libraries 
collections?

Hoping to hear from some of you,

Leslie

-- 

Leslie Kay Swigart <http://www.csulb.edu/%7Elswigart/>, Librarian
University Library <http://www.csulb.edu/library/>, California State 
University, Long Beach <http://www.csulb.edu/>
1250 Bellflower Boulevard, Long Beach, California, USA 90840-1901
Voice: 562-985-8327 FAX: 562-985-1703 Email: lswigart at csulb.edu 
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