Klein photos publicity statement 2/20/2026
I’m Dr. Phoenix Alexander, the Klein Librarian for Science Fiction and Fantasy here at
University of California, Riverside, where I steward the Eaton Collection: one of the
world’s largest cataloged collections of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and related genre
materials. I’m also a published author of over 20 short stories in venues such as F&SF,
Lightspeed, Escape Pod, and The Dark, and serve on SFWA’s History Committee.
I joined UCR Library in 2022, but as you might know, we began digitization of the Jay
Kay Klein photographs back in 2017, publishing just under 6000 images onto a publicly
accessible digital repository, Calisphere, as part of a mass digitization pilot initiative. As
part of this pilot initiative, we solicited community feedback on the descriptions of the
photos, utilizing a Google form and later a comment function on Calisphere itself. From
Fall 2019 to Summer 2021, the UCR Library undertook a comprehensive review project,
led by Andrew Lippert, Special Collections Processing Archivist, to update all of the
titles and descriptions for the Klein photos on Calisphere, incorporating the voluminous
and extraordinarily helpful community feedback received since the initial publication of
the photos.
Over the last few years, we’ve continued to digitize the remaining 57,000 images from
the Klein collection (an ongoing project that will take many more years to complete, as
you can imagine!), but we’re delighted to announce the publication of the first of eleven
boxes of photos, comprising almost 2,000 images of 47 conventions and events.
To share hundreds of photos more quickly with the community, we decided to implement
a two-phase approach to our descriptions. Some photos from the new box will appear
with basic information about the convention or event they belong to, with Klein’s original
identifiers for his images as temporary titles. These will be updated later with more
details about the people and topics depicted. Other photos will have descriptions
already enhanced by myself and Andrew Lippert, both subject specialists (albeit not
infallible ones!). We will continue describing and publishing the remainder of the photos,
one box at a time, in chronological order.
Once again, we welcome feedback from the community to assist with identifications in
the photos. We have compiled a web page with guidance on commenting practices to
ensure that your time and labor is respected, and that your feedback will be most helpful
to us as we continue to review, add, and amend the descriptions of these images. Asscience fiction fans and experts, we are of course familiar with the well-known figures of
the genre that you’ll see in these collections—so if possible please avoid identifying
figures such as Asimov, Heinlein, Pohl, and others of similar notoriety. Your feedback
will be most valuable in identifying the lesser-known individuals in the photographs, in
particular, fan attendees.
We’re honored to be able to make these wonderful snapshots of the SF community
publicly accessible in the years to come, and thank you in advance for your patience
and generosity! If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach
out to me at phoenix.alexander@ucr.edu.
Many thanks,
Phoenix & the UCR team
You will find the archive here.
For those who do not know, Jay Kay Klein was SF Fandom’s unofficial official photographer for quite a number of years (during ancient times in which static photographs, taken with a mechanically operated camera creating images on specialty paper which then had to be developed using baths of chemicals, all by hand, was one of the only means society had for documenting its history) and you can find out more about him on Fancyclopedia.org.
His works ended up at the Eaton Collection (UC Riverside) (one of SF’s best archives) and you can them at the link previously provided. You might also want to jump in and help identify some of the subjects.
Steve Davidson is the publisher of Amazing Stories.
Steve has been a passionate fan of science fiction since the mid-60s, before he even knew what it was called.
