March Drive - Spotlight On Open Doors!

Submitted by .allison morris on 10 March 2010 - 3:12pm
in

Open Doors is about heartbreak.

No, really. Bear with me for a minute. Remember that first 'zine you picked up at a con, the first fansite you discovered, the first archive you gained access to. The first time you thought, "Hey. This speaks to me; these people are like me."

It's an important moment: that revelation that there exists a community of fans, a culture that we create -- the revelation of what we are and what we become when we are doing what we love.

Does that 'zine still exist? That fansite? That fanwork that defied expectation and dared you to do the same, that archive that defined a moment in your fannish life, that resource you used to build a world -- are they still there? Or have they been washed away by moves and deaths and apathy, by belt-tightening and corrupted files and lack of spoons?

It's one thing if we make these decisions ourselves. It's another entirely to not have a choice, and to watch our work -- our words and art and resources, our collaborations and experiments and conversations, the proofs of our existence as communities -- be erased.

Open Doors is about creating a refuge for those works, about helping fans who want to preserve those 'zines and collections and con programs and archives and resources. Those moments of fannish epiphany. It's about keeping our hearts unbroken.

Supporting the OTW means support for Open Doors, and Open Doors, in turn, supports fandom. Donate, and keep the decisions in the hands of the fans. Help us help to preserve endangered fanworks. Help fight the battle to keep your heart safe.

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That was persuasive! I

Submitted by Cesy. (not verified) on 10 March 2010 - 4:07pm.

That was persuasive! I donated :)
Do you have a handy list of all the stuff Open Doors has preserved so far?

*psssst!*

Submitted by Kristen Murphy on 10 March 2010 - 4:18pm.

You can use your old username now if you want to (explanation here). :D

Handy List of Preserved Stuff. :-D

Submitted by .Heather Cook on 11 March 2010 - 3:36am.

We're going to be busy in 2010 -- we're looking forward to helping out with the Yuletide archive import, and there are several fests and Big Bangs planning to make the move to the AO3.

So far Open Doors has saved:

* a large number of fanzines and other fannish apocrypha have been archived at the Fan Culture Preservation Project, hosted by the Special Collections Department at the University of Iowa

* the Foresmutters Project, some multimedia items and a couple of early Star Trek fan novels have all been preserved in the Special Collections section. The collections section will be growing soon, as we have some at-risk archives queued up for inclusion in the AO3

* nearly 40 sites were rescued during the recent GeoCities Rescue; a complete list will be available soon

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