Textual evidence of fandom activities: The fanzine holdings at UC Riverside's Eaton Collection

Abstract

The Eaton Collection at the University of California, Riverside (UCR) is one of those nexus places, an archival cantina straddling several different functions in its daily uses and visitors. Located on the fourth floor of the Rivera Library, past the operational printing presses and the glassed-in displays of SF novel covers, its sunlit reading room and cheerful student help render the Eaton Collection vaguely unintimidating—until one gets past the small anteroom and into the collection itself. This vast array of papers, drafts, novels, anthologies, and other print matter evinces a long history of accumulated fandoms, material evidence of lifetimes of passionate enthusiasm all accumulated and accounted for, archived for anyone with a library pass, a yen for context, and a good eye for buried treasure.