MITSFS Index

The MITSFS Index to the S-F Magazines, 1951-1965 was a project by Erwin S. Strauss to create a follow-on to Don Day's Index to the Science Fiction Magazines 1926-1950 while he was a student at MIT and a member of MITSFS. It made use of the excellent MITSFS library and a number of other MIT students (including Tony Lewis and Mike Ward) worked on it, but it does not seem to have been a formal MITSFS project. The book was 9x11", 210 pages, hardcover.

This seems to have been the first published index to SF produced on a computer, though the unpublished MITSFS Pinkdex was probably earlier.

Strauss ran into financial problems and was unable to pay the printer who threatened to destroy the print run if not paid. NESFA (which was newly formed at the time) raised money by selling bonds which were redeemed as copies were sold and saved the books from destruction. The books (2000 copies!) were delivered to the (small) apartment Strauss shared with Mike Ward and, for want of any other options, became the furniture.

By the end of 1967, Strauss had been drafted and Ward move to California and the remaining indexes were turned over to NESFA which continued to sell them until the supply ran out in the 1980s.

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Publication

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