Distinctive Futurism Collection

Distinctive Futurism Collection

Starting in Spring 2019, I began building an Afrofuturism mini collection for Black history month for the Trinity College campus community. The collection includes scholarship, Black speculative fiction across the diaspora, curated Spotify music playlists and corresponding music videos, artwork, podcasts, lectures, games, and links to Afrofuturist institutes, conferences, and festivals. The collection is high circulating, the virtual guide has received 926 views since its release in February 2021 and was recently used by a Trinity visiting professor teaching a winter session course on sound futurism. I received requests from faculty to build a corresponding Latine futurism collection and interest in Indigenous futurisms. 

Given the level of engagement on campus with the Afrofuturism mini collection, I proposed building a distinctive collection at Trinity College centered around BIPOC and LGBTQ+ futurity. My proposal was accepted and the collection was recently given its own space in the library. The Distinctive Futurism Collection explores the intersections between race-ethnicity, gender and sexuality, identity, technology, sci-fi, horror, and magical realism to imagine BIPOC and LGBTQ+ futures and re-envision the past in ways that recognize the agency and resilience of people who must carry the burden of historical consciousness and trauma. The Distinctive Futurism collection redresses the erasure of BIPOC and queer voices in mainstream speculative fiction and science fiction while also reimagining "more just and vibrant futures."

In Fall 2022, I collaborated with our catalog librarian, Todd Falkowski, to identify and re-catalog existing titles in the library collection under the new "Distinctive Futurism" heading and the acquisitions assistant, Christine Devanney, to purchase 71 new titles for the collection. We used the new collections feature in PrimoVE to increase the discoverability of Distinctive Futurism titles in OneSearch (the library's OPAC). Items in the collection were recently moved to their new permanent physical location in the library. The last two phases of the project will focus on redesigning the physical space to have a futurist aesthetic and developing a communication and outreach plan to promote the collection and have it further integrated into the curriculum. 

Below you will find the collection discovery page made using new features in PrimoVE.