Call for Papers: Bodies of Knowledge: Speculating about Libraries, Archives, and the Future of Information

Call for Papers: Bodies of Knowledge: Speculating about Libraries, Archives, and the Future of Information

“Accessing.”

— Data, Star Trek: The Next Generation

Vector invites proposals for articles for a special issue on speculative fiction and libraries, as well as adjacent themes, e.g. speculative angles on archives, collections, repositories, simulations, antilibraries, catalogues, metadata, preservation, curation, media archaeology, literary publics, open access, search, big data, taxonomies, folksonomies, epistemes, architectures of knowledge, hypomnemata, the history and future of print, oral traditions, embodied knowledge, book stores, index cards, bibliographic management, scholarly apparatuses, indexes, performance archiving, back-ups, more-than-human knowledge systems, data futures, code libraries, toy libraries, tool libraries, etc.

We welcome submissions from all backgrounds, including academics within SFF Studies, Information Studies, Digital Humanities, and other disciplines across arts and humanities, social sciences, and STEM, librarians, library workers, archivists and curators, SFF authors, fans, and others. We especially welcome voices from marginalized groups. Collaborative and interdisciplinary work is encouraged. All contributions will automatically be considered for publication in a special issue of Vector (guest-edited by Phoenix Alexander and Stewart Baker) as well as Focus (edited by Dev Agarwal). 

Please submit your proposal by 31 March 2022 to vector.submissions@gmail.com, including:

• a 150-500 word proposal, including estimated article length;

• something about yourself, either a 50-100 word bio or a CV.

Final articles should be between 1,000 and 8,000 words (please provide an estimate). We seek articles that are intellectually ambitious and carefully grounded in scholarly research, while also being clear, engaging, and accessible to a broad audience (including non-academics). Articles will be due by 30 September 2022. 

Informal queries are welcome too.

POTENTIAL THEMES

We invite proposals for articles, as well as other formats such as reviews, interviews, roundtables, manifestoes, curated reading lists, or playful, innovative, and/or experimental formats, e.g. indexes, metadata standards. Potential angles include the following; for legibility, we refer mainly to libraries and librarians below, but contributors may also want to also consider these questions in relation to collections, archives, museums, and other existing or speculative cultural institutions, and all those who work in them.

• Depictions of libraries in speculative fiction, from Jorge Luis Borges’ Library of Babel and Terry Pratchett’s L-Space to more recent appearances like Samantha Mills’ ‘Anchorage’ and A.J. Hackwith’s Library of the Unwritten—and all points in between. What can we make of the interplay between libraries as “repositories of knowledge and power-houses of education” and their potential to serve as hoards guarded from the public? What does the job of an acquisition librarian look like in Rivendell? How would patron-driven acquisition work out in the world of Fifth Season? How do authors use libraries as metaphors, plot points, settings, etc., and what does this say about how we view libraries?

• Studies of real world science fiction libraries, collections, archives, or museums, either focused on specific institutions or the field as a whole. For example, practice articles from the perspective of librarians and curators on collecting, displaying, or using SFF materials, especially those concerned with decolonising archives, museums, and libraries; using SFF to further DEI initiatives; establishing new SFF libraries, collections and archives in the Global South; or using SFF as a lens on decarbonization, sustainability, and resilience.

• Alternative and future libraries. How might libraries transform in the future? What alternative, radical, and/or underrepresented forms of library exist today? How might decolonial praxis transform libraries? What might technologies like VR and AR, 3D printing, and deep learning language generators, as well as more speculative SFnal tech such as advanced nanotech, near-FTL travel, the ansible,