Friends and colleagues in the science fictional world may wonder why I have not been very aggressive of late with adding new author collections to the SFWA collections here at NIU.

In short, we’re out of space. Our building is finite (it is alas, not a TARDIS), and I have been allocated as much space as I’m going to get (seriously, they let me absorb a conference room) in the next 5 years or so, minimum, unless a kindly donor wants to build us a new building for offsite storage. (If you are that donor, please do get in touch. Seriously.)

I’ve had a “soft” moratorium going for a couple of years now, but it has Come Down Officially from my bosses in the library, so now I can talk about it publicly.

I will continue accepting additional materials from authors who already have deposited their collections with me, and for the Official SFWA Archive. This moratorium is on new collections only.

If you work in SF/F and would like your materials archived, please take a look at this list of my very fine colleagues doing similar work elsewhere, and get in touch with them. Or check out this SF/F collections wiki that shows you where your colleagues have archival materials.

Rest assured, we will continue to process and catalog the materials we have on hand, so please enjoy watching us catch up on our backlog in the nearish future.

Thanks for your understanding.