Prydonians of Prynceton Lending Library

Archive
Name:	Prydonians of Prynceton Lending Library
Date(s):
Archivist:
Founder:
Type:	fanzine lending library
Fandom:	Blake's 7, Doctor Who, multimedia
URL:
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

The Prydonians of Prynceton Lending Library was a fanzine lending library run by the Prydonians of Prynceton fanclub.

In 1991, it described itself as being the largest Fanzine Lending Library in North America.

The fanzine collection featured mainly Blake's 7 fanzines published through 1990, but it also included Doctor Who and multi-media zines. With a subscription membership, fans could borrow zines by mail. The membership fee was a one time charge of $10 with a .50 cents zine/month lending fee.

In 1993, the library had shut down and the collection, which consisted of eighteen 2-drawer file cabinets, moved into the home of one of the fanclub members.

Attempts to revive the library ran into several logistical issues, one of which was that inconsistent record keeping made it difficult to separate out personal zines from library zines. The zines came from a variety of sources: some zines were donations-in-lieu-of-membership fee, some were bought with cash membership fees, some with the zine/month lending fee, some were donated by their publishers or by GIAFiating fen or by just plain generous fen, and some were purchased with the librarian's personal money.

In 1993, the Fanzine Archives run by Ming Wathne offered $2,000 for the collection but this was felt to be far less than it was worth on the used zine market.

In 2012, this zine collection was donated by members of the club to the University of Iowa. It is now housed at the University of Iowa Special Collections. While the lending library aspect of this collection ended in 1993, there must have been additional zines added to it, as the zines in it range from 1971-2000. The three fandoms which make up much of the collection are Blake's 7 [boxes 2-38], Doctor Who [boxes 39-54], and Star Trek: The Original Series [boxes 66-95] comprising 54.0 linear feet. See more at Prydonians of Prynceton Fanzine Collection, Collection Identifier: msc0942.