Bibliography
As the articles below, from Fancy 1 and Fancy 2, note, the bibliographic impulse in fandom runs deep, and bibliographies of fanzines and prozines go back to its earliest days.
Closely related to bibliography is the creation of an Index or Checklist, terms often preferred by fans. Having an index is what turns hoarding into collecting.
These publications listing all the issues of a prozine or fanzine, or all of the works of a writer are used by completists to gauge the success of their collecting and to plot future acquisitions.
Entry in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.
| From Fancyclopedia 2, ca. 1959 |
| Part of completism is the desire to have a complete list of all fantasy that has ever been produced in any form, despite the extreme difficulty of defining fantasy exactly. Much valuable spadework has been done, in listings of fantasy stories in mundane magazines, fantasy in the films, scientificomics, indexes to the proz, etc, but none of these has been complete even in its own restricted field, and the master project remains for the future. Worth noticing here are the Swisher-Evans-Pavlat fanzine checklist; Evans' work with the Munsey files; the checklists and indexes of Don Day and Everett Bleiler; and some work on the off-base fringes of the pulp field by Bill Austin. The task of compiling fantasy books alone is such a big job that proposals have been made to make it a cooperative enterprise of all interested bibliophiles in fandom. Tony Boucher in July 1944 called for a centralization of fantasy bibliographic work, to be run by a chief bibliographer "who would live surrounded by card-indexes". Other fans would specialize and submit their stuff to the central office, and the product would eventually be published as The Great Bibliography. |
| From Fancyclopedia 2 Supplement, ca. 1960 |
| The Richardson Indexes were by Darrell C. Richardson, and were given out thru N3F about 1950. It was Bob Peterson from Denver who produced the Weird Tales Index. |
The entry in Fancy 1 was under Bibliografies, an example of the Simplifyd Spelng fandom so loved at the time.
| From Fancyclopedia 1, ca. 1944 |
| Bibliografies – Part of completism is the desire to have a complete list of all fantasy that has ever been produced in any form, despite the extreme difficulty of defining fantasy exactly. Much valuable spadework has been done, in listing of fantasy stories in mundane magazines, fantafilms, scientificomics, books, indexes to the pros, &c, but none of these has been complete even in its own restricted field, and the master project remains for the future.
The task of compiling fantasy books alone is such a big job that proposals have been made to make it a cooperative enterprise of all interested bibliophiles in fandom. |
| Publishing |
