Tag Archives: Jay Kay Klein

Help Identify People in Jay Kay Klein Photos with New Online Form

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Jay Kay Klein at Bucconeer (1998).

Everyone interested in helping identify the writers and fans in Jay Kay Klein’s photos taken at Worldcons in the Sixties should use the new online form activated this weekend.

Two weeks ago, the California Digital Library and the UC Riverside Library made available for viewing nearly 6,000 digitized photos, with more to come. Many of the photos had incorrect identifications, or none, and there was a surge of interest in getting them corrected. Last week, as a stopgap measure, information was being taken via Facebook.

Now J.J. Jacobson, the UCR Library’s Jay Kay and Doris Klein Librarian for Science Fiction, has announced they’re ready for people to start using their form, which is here: https://library.ucr.edu/klein-info-form

In order to assure that information is properly associated, they ask that everyone submit a separate form for each photo being annotated.

Jacobson also says:

Although the form doesn’t allow the kind of commenting back-and-forth that we’ve seen on the Eaton Facebook page, it will help us a great deal by organizing the info in a way that’s very helpful for applying and managing metadata at this scale. We’re already thinking beyond this pilot to how we’ll collect information and manage the metadata for the remaining ~55,000 Klein photos.  We’re also working on putting robust crowdsourcing and commenting functions in place,  looking forward to the time when all the photos and digitized and available – not the work of a moment – because we know this conversation will be going on for a long time.

Here is a screenshot of the form:

How To Add Identifications to Jay Kay Klein’s Digitized Photos

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Two Eaton archivists studying a Klein shipment.

Since last week, when the California Digital Library and the UC Riverside Library made available online nearly 6,000 photos taken by Jay Kay Klein at eight Worldcons in the Sixties, fans have voiced concerns that the names of the people in most of these pictures are not been included, and that many of the existing identifications are wrong.

J.J. Jacobson, the UC Riverside Library’s Jay Kay and Doris Klein Librarian for Science Fiction, has now announced a way for everyone  to give their input.

Here’s how to tell us what you want us to know about the Jay Kay Klein Photographs now up on Calisphere

  1. Go to the Klein Papers on Calisphere: https://calisphere.org/collections/26943/
  2. Find a photo about which you have information
  3. Create a post here [on the Eaton Collection’s Facebook page] with that photo’s URL — (Example: https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/86086/n23j3b9q/)
  4. Tell us what you know about the image: what, who, where, when
  5. Discuss

[Note: Jacobson is a different person than File 770’s JJ.]

Eaton Collection Puts Jay Kay Klein Photos Online

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Nearly 6,000 photos taken by Jay Kay Klein at eight Worldcons in the Sixties were made available for viewing online today by the UC Riverside Library.

The digitization of these photos was covered by Inside UCR on August 10 —

The California Digital Library and the UCR Library recently partnered to digitize nearly 6,000 photographs from the Jay Kay Klein papers – and completed the task in less than two days.

“If we had done the same project in-house, it would have taken us several months to do,” said University Librarian Steven Mandeville-Gamble.

UC Riverside is the first among the entire UC system to employ this specialized workflow with proprietary object holders designed by Pixel Acuity. The company has used the process with previous clients that include the Smithsonian Institution and Stanford University.

Klein contributed his photo collection of 66,000 images of sf fandom and authors to UC Riverside’s Eaton Collection prior to his death in 2012, a collection valued at $1.4 million. His estate also donated $3.5 million and helped create the UCR Library’s Jay Kay and Doris Klein Librarian for Science Fiction.

The eight Worldcons documented in the photos are: Pittcon (1960), Chicon III (1962), Discon I (1964), Tricon (1966), Nycon 3 (1967), Baycon (1968), St. Louiscon (1969), Noreascon (1971).

Unfortunately, the names of the people in most of these pictures have not been included, which impairs their usefulness to fanhistorians.

An overview of everything in the Jay Kay Klein papers is here.

https://twitter.com/ewingrr/status/898311560145141760

https://twitter.com/ewingrr/status/898314058222387201

(Doll and Alexis Gilliland, and their son.)

https://twitter.com/ewingrr/status/898312605441204224

https://twitter.com/ewingrr/status/898313357240946689

[Via Locus Online.]

Worldcon Site Selection Vote Count in 1966

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Site selection at Tricon. Photo taken by and (c) Andrew Porter.

Site selection at Tricon. Photo taken by and (c) Andrew Porter.

‘Tis the season to count ballots, inspiring Andrew Porter to send along a photo of site selection votes being counted on stage at Tricon, the 1966 Worldcon.

Fans had to choose between four competitive bids seeking to host the 1967 Worldcon. New York won, defeating rivals from Boston, Baltimore, Syracuse (and a comic relief bid for Highmore, SD).

The New York committee were Fanoclasts — Ted White, rich brown, Mike McInerney, Dave Van Arnam, and Arnie Katz.

The Syracuse bid was co-chaired by Jay K. Klein and Dave Kyle. Ruth Kyle was Secretary, George Heap was Treasurer and the rest of the committee included James Ashe, Ann Ashe, and Jack Smith.

Two of the losing bids had invited Fred Pohl as their Guest of Honor — he would finally get the nod in 1972 (L.A.Con).

UCR Seeks Eaton Collection Librarian

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Applications to be the Jay Kay and Doris Klein Science Fiction Librarian in University Library at UC Riverside are now being taken.

Primary Responsibilities: The Jay Kay and Doris Klein Librarian for Science Fiction is responsible for all aspects of the development, stewardship and promotion of the Eaton Collection of Science Fiction and Fantasy, housed in the University of California, Riverside Library’s Special Collections & Archives.

As a member of the Special Collections & University Archives team, the Klein Librarian interprets and sets priorities for the Eaton Collection within the Library’s collection development policy, and represents the Eaton Collection within the broader community of faculty, students, other scholars, librarians, dealers, collectors, and the public The Klein Librarian participates in library planning, preservation, and access initiatives. S/he provides specialized reference and research support for Eaton Collection users and interprets the collection for diverse audiences through exhibitions, public presentations, and original scholarship. Collection development and management, reference service and access, scholarly collaboration and support, instruction using primary sources, and public outreach are essential activities in this collaborative environment.

And ever so much more!

[Via Bradley Scott and Andrew Porter.]

Jay Kay Klein (1931-2012)

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Jay Kay Klein at Bucconeer (1998).

Jay Kay Klein, who spent his final days in hospice care with terminal oesophegeal cancer, died May 13 reports John Hertz. Jay Kay was 80 years old.

Jay Kay and his camera documented decades of fanhistory. His four photo-filled Worldcon Memory Books (1960, 1962, 1963, 1966), are nostalgic monuments to an era most of us missed.

He was Fan Guest of Honor at Discon II, the 1974 Worldcon. He received the Big Heart Award in 1990, and just last year he was enshrined in the First Fandom Hall of Fame. Pros appreciated his work, too – he was awarded a SFWA Presidential Plaque for Extraordinary Photographs.

Jay Kay entered fandom in 1945, at a Philadelphia SF Society meeting. Within two years he also joined the Queens Science Fiction League Chapter in Astoria, Long Island, and the Eastern Science Fiction Assn. (ESFA) in Newark. Much later he was part of two failed Syracuse Worldcon bids in the 1960s.

From 1977 to 2005 he wrote and supplied photos for the “Biolog” feature in Analog.

As time went by Jay Kay showed considerable sensitivity to ways in which he felt overlooked. Sometimes he passed it off with humor. When MagiCon (1992) insisted fans show photo ID’s to register, Jay Kay claimed to have satisfied the requirement with an old photo from his portfolio showing himself on a con panel beside Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov. But another time I found it easy to agree that it seemed unappreciative when staffers at a Worldcon tried to discourage him from roaming in front of the stage to take photos during major events. After all, he had made himself legendary taking photos in situations like that.

P. S. Trivia question: A photo of Jay Kay Klein is included in the “Fan Gallery,” a traveling exhibit displayed at Worldcons. Guess what former Worldcon chair was the photographer? (Not me.) The answer is at the bottom of this webpage.

Jay Kay Klein taking a photo of Discon II’s other GoH, Roger Zelazny. Photo by David Dyer-Bennett.

Jay Kay roaming in front of the audience at Discon II. Photo by David Dyer-Bennett.

Klein in Hospice

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Legendary fan photographer Jay Kay Klein is in a hospice with terminal oesophegeal cancer reports Laurraine Tutihasi, who spoke to the person who placed him.

Klein recently made news when he donated his photos to UC Riverside’s Eaton Collection.

[Thanks to Andrew Porter for the story.]

John Hertz: Klein is Big, Door is Dear

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By John Hertz: Jay Kay Klein, the photographer of science fiction, has donated his photographs to the Eaton Collection. Shipments are arriving. It is best to arrange such things while one is alive.

Klein shot all of us – sounds tempting, doesn’t it? – fans and pros. He was there, usually with several cameras. In monochrome, color, stereo, he took a hundred thousand photos.

The Eaton Collection, on the Riverside campus of the University of California, is the world’s largest publicly accessible holding of s-f, with books, prozines, fanzines, ephemera. Terry Carr’s, Rick Sneary’s, and Bruce Pelz’ collections made Eaton the largest in fanzines. The Klein photos are a perfect match, and in their own right an element – I use the word deliberately.

Since seven years were needed for a preliminary index of the Pelz collection, Eaton librarians delighted in finding Klein’s photos carefully identified. Perhaps I may be allowed to say that when I talked with him by phone about it recently he chortled. It had not been by the power of his mind alone that he laid hands on pictures as needed.

How good are they?

Look at the Photo Yearbook in the 75th Anniversary issue of Analog (January-February 2005). The photos are Klein’s. See in particular his portraits of Campbell, Heinlein, Moore.

He’s been as valuable a reporting photographer as a portraitist. Look at the Asimov Appreciation in the June 1992 Locus. He can write, too. He recounted the memorial gathering, then gave the closing reminiscence, after Hartwell, Gunn, de Camp. Asimov “loved to have someone top him if possible. Seldom possible.”

Photography is an extraordinary combination of an artist’s vision and of fact. Of this Jay Kay Klein has been illustrative.

No one can top an act like that, but I promised to say something about Selina Phanara’s door. It arrived safely, was placed duly, and is enjoyed muchly.

Eaton is eager to make its resources available. It has a Website and a copying service. Visits in person are welcome.

Two Eaton archivists studying a Klein shipment.

Selina Phanara’s door in place.