Memory Hole
(Did you mean the Newspeak term?)
The Memory Hole was a project conceived by Greg Pickersgill to recover unwanted or dormant fanzine collections and redistribute them both to new fanzine readers and to established fans and collectors looking for additions to their active collections. It was started in 1994 although it was first referenced in Rastus Johnson's Cakewalk #3 (December 1993).
Substantial collections were donated by Walt Willis and Beryl Bentcliffe (widow of Eric) with smaller amounts from fans who weren't collectors, or collectors weeding their files of duplicates. A considerable amount of material came from, and went to, the United States, Canada and Australia.
By 2003 requests for fanzines had faded to nothing so that part of the project was abandoned, and the 1,000+ remaining duplicates were contributed to the fan room at Interaction, the 2005 Worldcon.
The Memory Hole also included the 'permacollection' peaking at around 16,000 fanzines based on Pickersgill's personal collection. The associated online fanzinography, always intended to cover print publications, was updated until 2014, when it became obvious that almost all fanzines were made available primarily if not only online. Its listing complements the British Fanzine Bibliography. The latter is more extensive but incorporates material from secondary sources and thus potentially apocryphal issues and even titles, whereas the permacollection list is restricted to fanzines in the owner's possession.
The associated Memory Hole Mailing List was an Email List started in January 1999 with the intention of being a more focussed fanzine-oriented discussion than existing lists. By July 2003 it had overgrown and was persistently off-topic. Bill Burns took over the group in 2003 and renamed it Fmzfen under which name it continues.
The Memory Hole Annex was a similar project set up by Pat McMurray to create an archive of convention material. It was dispersed by 2007.
Links
- Memory Hole permacollection list (updated to 2014) at gostak.org.uk.
- 'What was this thing called Memory Hole' by Greg Picksgill at gostak.org.uk.
- Extract from Rastus Johnson's Cakewalk #3 (December 1993) where the idea is first proposed.
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