Korigjime

In his article "Mad Scientist Club," Tate Williams (2014) relates the story of the MIT Science Fiction Society Library (MITSFS).

Explains how this student organization was born and grow till it became an authoritative library.

And the relevance it had had in Guy Consolmagno and others’ life.

For those of us who never heard the name, Brother Guy Consolmagno is an American research astronomer and Director of the Vatican Observatory, who happens to have an asteroid named after him.

Williams tell us haw in his youth, Consolmagno, after finishing his studies at the Boston College, decided to transfer to MIT, not for the university prestige in astronomic science but for a much more profound attraction.

The thousands and thousands of science fiction novels that MIT kept, at that moment, in a room of the student center.

The library was created in 1949 by an undergrad student as a group of fans, and since its beginnings it’s been dedicated to acquire and administrate sci-fi, fantasy, and science fantasy books and magazines.

It wasn’t until 1960s when the library gained its own space in the student center that things began to take shape.

By 1965 the library counted with a decent little budget.

One member —of the many that had dedicated their time— created a catalog based on IBM punch cards known as Pinkdex, which still exist and is now online.

Managed only by MIT’s students and volunteers, Williams’s article alleges that MITSFS boasts the largest open-shelf science fiction library in existence, with books line the walls, mostly floor to ceiling, and numbers that goes back to the 1920s, at the very beginning of the genre.

The library has grown large and nowadays space is an issue.

In his article, Williams, includes a remarkable reflection about how the genres that give life to the library had a long inherent and intrinsic history with science itself.

Since this books had bring to live many realities far before science itself, exploring the potential consequences of scientific and other innovations would have in mankind, turning the improbable into a possible.

The MIT seems the logic place where to find this library, one that has played an important role in the development of so many students and their careers.

As an example of this influence, Williams describes the case of Consolmagno itself, who found the inspiration for his first paper in the journal Science —about the sulfuric volcanoes of Jupiter’s moon lo— on Hal Clement’s book: Iceworld.

The author concludes his article by quoting Brother Guy Consolmagno words to describe this incredible library: “It’s a place where you can sit, and relax and read a book, and not be bothered if you don’t want to be bothered.

It’s the comfy chair — surrounded by the books.

To me, that’s still my idea of heaven.”