S.P.E.C.T.R.E., The Caltech Science Fiction Club

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Why Spectre?

Because a university thoroughly dedicated to science wouldn't be truly complete without a Science Fiction Club!

Where is Spectre?

Spectre is located in the SAC Bechtel library; the room is on South Master. Presently, books may be checked out using the green marble notebook on the table.

Library

The main purpose of Spectre is to provide Caltech with quality speculative fiction. We have a heavy focus on science fiction but also offer selections from fantasy, historical fiction, alternative histories, relevant nonfiction, and various other genres.

The librarians are currently in the process of cataloging our collection so that you can check it out, however you are welcome to read books in the library while we get checkout up and running.

Collection

We are still catalogging our books we got back from St. Luke's. Here is our old catalog from before the move. You can also see our incomplete new catalog [ sqlite3 txt ]

Club

We're not just a club; we also hold social events. Our calendar is accessible via Google Calendar.

Any person in the Caltech community is entitled to Spectre membership. Joining is currently ill-defined, but you can start by subscribing to the mailing list (currently, zero traffic, planned low traffic) at https://utils.its.caltech.edu/mailman/listinfo/spectrum. Club membership is free for you, but it helps us get funding.

We hope to hold at least one Spectre event per term, such as showing a particularly good or particularly bad speculative fiction film, attending a convention, or holding a reading of the Eye of Argon.

You do not need to be a member to check out or read books, you just need a library account. This is also free for you, and also gets us funding.

Volunteer

We need assistance cataloging, shelving, and barcoding our vast collection of works. If you have some time to donate, please contact Alex Roper at alexr@caltech.edu for information. Even an hour would help us a lot, and you can come by whenever; we don't all need to be there.

The more help we have, the sooner we open.

Donations and Purchases

Spectre is happy to accept books from people who are not Caltech undergrads, as well as alumni who have been graduated for at least one year. We institute this waiting period to ensure that people don't give away treasured possessions out of irrational emotions around graduation. Exceptions will be made for anyone who can convince us they don't want to lug books acroos the country with them.

We are also willing to negotiate purchases or exchanges if you have books we may be interested in, and have a reasonable budget for buying new materials. Contact us for more information.

Club officers

Spectre is co-ruled by a benevolant triumvirate over three overlapping but distinct spheres.

With our powers combined, WE ARE SPECTRE!

Also in at the ground floor were Daniel Rowlands and Eric Chin. Thanks to our friends who have helped us catalog: Randall Wald, Jamie Jackson, Glenn Wagner, Alexander Rapp, Cathy Douglass, and Marty Rosenberg.