海外社团 | 麻省理工学院科幻协会介绍

2020年2月，高校科幻平台启动了『国际高校科幻社团交流计划』，我们希望通过线上采访的形式，结交国际科幻社团同好，向中国科幻圈介绍国际高校科幻的发展现状，促进彼此之间的深入了解。

我们委托日语翻译田田老师首先向13所日本高校科幻社团发出采访邀请函，并陆续收到了回信（相关回信可查看《海外社团》栏目）。2021年年末，河流向英语地区部分海外高校通过邮件取得联系，接下来，高校科幻平台将陆续刊登这些回信。

以下是回信的翻译内容

您好，很高兴收到您的来信。很抱歉，您的邮件之前被归类进了垃圾邮件文件夹，因此我们没能看到它。

我们是麻省理工学院科幻协会（MITSFS），于1949年成立。现在由我来回答你的一些问题，尽管我并不是最新一任主席，已经毕业了。

我们会在每年春天举行一次理事会选举，会选出新一任主席，副主席，财务部长和秘书，作为一个校内社团，我们的主要活动是在学校里运营一个科幻奇幻图书馆。

因为我并不在学校，所以无法获取现有会员的电话号码。我们通常会有几十位成员一同管理图书馆，几百人来图书馆翻阅书籍。

我们的主要招新方式通常是带着一大堆科幻奇幻书籍去学生社团招新大会，看看谁会因此被吸引，说服那些对协会图书馆很感兴趣的人加入我并协助管理它。在新型观众肺炎（COVID-19）大流行的影响下， 我们的招新遇到了很多麻烦，这可能需要另外一个人来谈论这个问题。

我们有专门订购书籍的成员；有将书籍录入数据库的成员；有在精装书封面上贴上塑料封皮来保养书籍的成员；有负责多余书籍捐赠接收的成员；维护协会电脑程序的开发者（数据库和借阅系统）；每天开馆闭馆的成员；还有专门做招新的成员等等。

有时我们会组织集体观看电影，在过去十年的时间内参加全民写小说写作平台（NanoWrimo）发起的“全国小说创作月”活动，邀请其他成员在11月每个星期参加2小时的写作活动；我们之前还组织过当地的科幻大会（Boskone，美国波士顿科幻奇幻协会举办的科幻大会）。因为有很多对科幻感兴趣的人，因此这些活动才能被举办。

我们的日常活动是让图书馆一直保持开放状态并时不时提供一些新书，而这在新冠肺炎疫情的影响下变得非常困难。我们也有每周例会，每次例会都会在晚餐后结束。现在我们改成在线上平台discord上举办读书会（我认为这种情况很快就会结束），相对而言，活动空间（Space）永远是困难的。

我们有做作家采访，读书会，以及其他的一些社交活动。每年春季选举过后，我们都会举办一年一度的春季野餐活动，但我们更倾向于不组织大型活动。

我们有许多非常活跃的毕业校友，比如我，这有利于保持协会的制度记忆（institutional memory）和制度信息（institutionalknowledge）。

这样一封邮件应该已经能够觉得您提出的以上问题了，如果您感兴趣的话，欢迎继续提问！我也很好奇你们遇到了哪些困难。

最后，虽然有点早，但：

新年快乐，恭喜发财！

凯瑟琳（Katherine）

科幻协会前理事会主席

2022年1月29日6时42分

以下是回信原文

Hello!

It's nice to hear from you. Sorry yourmessage went into the spam folder and we didn't see it right away.

(1) (2) We're the Massachusetts Instituteof Technology Science Fiction Society. We started in 1949. I'll answer some ofyour questions, though I'm not the most up-to-date, since I'm not a currentstudent.

(4) We have elections for President, VicePresident, Treasurer, and Secretary once a year in the spring. Our mainactivity as a group is running a science fiction and fantasy library on campus.

(5) I don't have access to our currentmembership numbers. We usually have a couple dozen people who run the libraryand a couple hundred people who check out books.

(6) Our main recruitment method was usuallyto 1) go to student group recruitment fairs with a giant pile of books and seewho is attracted by that 2) talk anyone who seems really excited to find ourlibrary into joining to help run it. With COVID-19 we have had a lot of troublewith recruitment, but someone who is not me would need to be the one to talkabout that.

(7) We have people who order books, peoplewho put the books in our database, people who put plastic on hardcover bookcovers for protection, people who find places to donate excess books, peoplewho maintain our computer programs (database, check out system), people whokeep the library open, people who do recruitment and others.

(7) Sometimes we organize movie watching,one person over the past decade likes participating in National Novel WritingMonth (NaNoWriMo) and invites others to join her for 2 hrs a week duringNovember, we've organized trips to the local Sci-Fi Convention (Boskone)before. Those activities come and go as people who are interested in organizingthem come and go.

(8) Our daily activities are keeping thelibrary open and supplied with new books. This has been very hard with COVID.We also have weekly meetings that often end with everyone going to dinner.Right now we're doing a book club over Discord (I think that's ending soon).

(9) We've had authors come visit and givereadings or talk and socialize. That's maybe a once a year thing. We also havean annual picnic right after elections. We tend not to do big eventorganization.

(10) Space is always difficult.

(11) We have very active alumni (I'm one).This helps maintain institutional memory and institutional knowledge.

I think that's enough writing for oneemail. Feel free to ask more about anything that is interesting to you! I'mvery curious about what sorts of difficulties you've run into.

It's a little early, but,

新年快乐，恭喜发财

-Katherine

Former MITSFS President，

2022.01.29，6：42

联络：河流

翻译：河流

编辑：孟温煜