About

The Science Fiction Oral History Association (SFOHA) is a non-profit corporation. Our Articles of Incorporation define our goals as:

1. To search for recordings in the area of Science Fiction Oral History made in the past and re-engineer them when necessary;
2. To record current events in Science Fiction Oral History;
3. To arrange special interviews and events of historical interest in the area of Science Fiction and record them;
4. To donate copies of all of said recordings to official depositories at Universities in the United States and foreign countries where they will be available for study and preserved for historical purposes.

SFOHA was founded in 1975 at the first ConFusion, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Its ongoing mission is to capture our future historical legends (both Fan and Pro) on tape for other generations to enjoy and understand. SFOHA does recordings at conferences and in private and especially appreciates opportunities to record interviews.

We have recently sent copies of tapes from the archive to various transcription and journalistic research projects. Please contact us if you would like to access something in the archive.

We are in process of developing a new Recordings Acquired process. An old copy can be found Over here

SFOHA Catalog Online
The 1998 version of the SFOHA Archive Catalog is online here. It is organized mainly by Series, which were often focused on the person recording, or somesuch. We are working on getting a fully searchable database set up.We do not have permission to distribute all of these recordings, but many of them are already present at deposit collections at University Libraries in Michigan, Kansas, and New Mexico. We are currently working with librarians at those locations to confirm what their holdings are and how the public can access them.

Volunteering
SFOHA enthusiastically welcomes volunteers both near and far who would like to help by recording audio and/or video material for our archives. To aid you in this purpose, we are now providing a release form (44kb MS Word. SFOHA can provide the best distribution and access to our archive material if the people who appear or are heard can be persuaded to fill out this form specifying what rights they release to us. There is also a membership form on the back. SFOHA welcomes contributions to the archives from personal collections. Please make sure each recording donated to SFOHA is clearly labeled with the date of the recording, the location or event of the recording, and, when possible, the subject and the people present in the recording. It’s also good to let us know who made the recording, using what equipment. Additional descriptive material about the recordings will be entered into our catalog if included; if the recording came form a convention, it would be handy for us if you would just include a copy of the pocket and/or program book of the convention itself. Contributions to the archives should be sent to SFOHA at the address below.

We also invite people to start their own chapters of SFOHA. (more info.)

Call for volunteers for Worldcon
We are seeking volunteers to help record events at any future Worldcon. Please contact us if you are interested in helping out. Please contact Rick at timeshowhost@gmail.com if you are interested in helping at any future worldcon.

Membership
Membership in SFOHA costs $5 per year. Alternatively, an active membership is available to anyone who dontates 3 or more recordings that SFOHA does not have already to our archive. Clubs can also join SFOHA.
A membership subscription can be sent (payable to SFOHA) to the address below.
We also invite people to make a $50 contribution specifically to fund the professional transfer of a reel-to-reel recording to modern media. Such contributions from Reel Supporters will be recognized in the newsletter and on this website.

A handbook called the SFOHA Interviewing Guide is also available to members by request.

SFOHA Talk ListThere is a discussion list for those who are interested in Science Fiction Oral History. It is called SFOHA Talk. This is an open subscription list. To subscribe, send an email totalk-request@sfoha.org with “subscribe” in the body of the message. Standard Majordomo list requests can be sent to the talk-request@sfoha.org address (subscribe, unsubscribe, help, who, etc.).To post messages to the list you send them to talk@sfoha.org.

We hope this will be an active forum for people to discuss the techniques and other details of science fiction oral history in general, and SFOHA in particular.

Board of Directors
President: Rick Jackson
Vice President: Mike Gardiner
Treasurer: Chad Childers
Secretary: Stephen Lucchetti
Director at Large: Joel Zakem
Past President: Anne KG Murphy

The Board operates under the following Bylaws (last revised in 2004).Upcoming Board Meetings: (board meetings are always open to the membership)

Send us an email if you’d like to find out when and where our next board meetings are scheduled.

Contacting SFOHA
email: info@sfoha.org

Mail:

SFOHA
41820 Glen Arbor St
Canton, MI 48188

Rest in Peace, Big Hearted Howard

Rest in Peace, Lloyd Biggle, Jr.
1923-2002

Last updated May 22, 2009

please send questions or comments on the website specifically to webmaster@sfoha.org