Education

More than just a library: UMass Science Fiction Society fights for a home on campus

"We have folks who say it was their home on campus...it’s a place where if you’re not into the standard UMass party culture, you can just go and hang out with people and be yourself."

Members packed the entire 8,000-plus book collection into cardboard boxes that were moved into storage. UMass Science Fiction Society

By Julia Taliesin

3 minutes to read

The Science Fiction Society at UMass Amherst has a library of over 8,000 books, including many rare editions. The society functions as a book club, a community, and an inclusive haven for many on campus, but last week members packed every book into storage after losing their permanent home due to a university policy change.

Now, they are making noise about the true loss this represents. Over 2,500 people have signed a petition calling on the university to relocate the library and society to a permanent home.

Elodie Carel, senior and society treasurer, noted that the society operates a lending library, a function that isn’t possible out of lockers or storage boxes. The society also shared a room with the Game Hobbyist League and the Anime and Manga Club, and together all three had a media library of over 9,200 sources.

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“Our library provides a sense of community for a lot of people at UMass Amherst that don’t fit the standard box,” they said. “We are being forced out of the space, and there’s no indication we’re going to get any type of permanent space.”

“The whole point of a library is you sit, you browse, you build community, and you can’t do that from a locker.”

The Science Fiction Society space was a haven for many students who hadn’t found a home elsewhere on the large campus. – UMass Science Fiction Society

There are over 350 registered student organizations (RSOs) like the society on campus, a university spokesperson told Boston.com, and not enough room for each to have their own permanent space. Working with RSOs, the Student Government Association sought to provide more equitable access to rooms by taking away permanent spaces and establishing a reservation system for each room.

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“Overwhelmingly, the RSOs wanted more meeting space as well as storage space,” university spokesperson Ed Blaguszewski said. “There are 33 different meeting rooms in the building that are open to all RSOs, along with 500 storage lockers that RSOs may use to store any items or equipment specific to their organization.”

Blaguszewski said the university has been working with the society to “temporarily relocate their large collection of materials for the coming academic year” and “find a longer-term solution to archive and provide access to their books and other materials.”

Right now, Carel said, the books, including rare editions and unique volumes, are in cardboard boxes in a humid, un-air-conditioned basement. One of these rare editions is a copy of Octavia Butler’s “Survivor,” considered her lost novel, which retails for between $900 and $1,300.

“We’ve had alum reach out to us because they can’t find a book in libraries, in stores, online, anywhere, and they reach out to us and ask if we have it and the answer is usually yes,” she said. “It’s a community, we have notable alumni such as Susan Palmer who referred to it as the first place she felt safe and home. We have folks who say it was their home on campus…it’s a place where if you’re not into the standard UMass party culture, you can just go and hang out with people and be yourself.”

After members packed up the collection, the Science Fiction Society bookshelves sat empty. – UMass Science Fiction Society

Carel and Phil Wilkerson, a senior and society president, hope the university will find a permanent home for the materials and the three groups to preserve that sense of community — as much as the physical materials.

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“They’re not taking into account the historic value of our collection or the importance of having a space like that on campus, especially one that touts itself as being so diverse,” Wilkerson said. “All of our activities really revolve around the library itself so taking away our library and making us store books in a dank, dark room that is definitely not going to treat our books well destroys our club’s purpose.”

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