BLEILER, Richard

PERSONAL:

Male.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Reference and Information Services Department, Homer Babbidge Library, University of Connecticut, North 369 Fairfield Way, Storrs, CT 06269-2005. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

University of Connecticut, Homer Babbidge Library Collections Services, Storrs, humanities reference librarian.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Bram Stoker Award nomination for nonfiction, Horror Writers Association, 2002, for Supernatural Fiction Writers: Contemporary Fantasy and Horror.

WRITINGS:

(Compiler, with Dieu Van Tong) Marcel Proust at UAG: A Checklist of Proust Holdings at the Mervyn H. Sterne Library, Mervyn H. Sterne Library, University of Alabama (Birmingham, AL), 1988.

(With Everett F. Bleiler) Science Fiction, the Early Years: A Full Description of More Than 3,000 Science-Fiction Stories from Earliest Times to the Appearance of the Genre Magazine in 1930: With Author, Title, and Motif Indexes, Kent State University Press (Kent, OH), 1990.

The Index to Adventure Magazine, two volumes, Starmont House (Mercer Island, WA), 1990.

The Annotated Index to "The Thrill Book": Complete Indexes to and Descriptions of Everything Published in Street & Smith's "The Thrill Book," Borgo Press (San Bernardino, CA), 1991.

(Compiler, with Jon E. Cawthorne) Internet Training in ARL Libraries: A SPEC Kit, Association of Research Libraries, Office of Management Services (Washington, DC), 1997.

(With Everett F. Bleiler) Science-Fiction: The Gernsback Years: A Complete Coverage of the Genre Magazines "Amazing," "Astounding," "Wonder," and Others from 1926 through 1936, Kent State University Press (Kent, OH), 1998.

(Editor) Science Fiction Writers: Critical Studies of the Major Authors from the Early Nineteenth Century to the Present Day, 2nd edition, Scribner (New York, NY), 1998.

Reference Guide to Mystery and Detective Fiction, Libraries Unlimited (Englewood, CO), 1999, 2nd edition published as Reference and Research Guide to Mystery and Detective Fiction, Libraries Unlimited (Westport, CT), 2003.

(Compiler, with Terry Plum) Networked Information Resources: A SPEC Kit, Association of Research Libraries, Office of Leadership and Management Services (Washington, DC), 1999.

(Editor) Supernatural Fiction Writers: Contemporary Fantasy and Horror, 2nd edition, Scribner (New York, NY), 2003.

SIDELIGHTS:

Librarian Richard Bleiler has specialized in publishing indexes and reference materials on genre fiction. In the Reference Guide to Mystery and Detective Fiction, for example, he provides a one-stop source for finding information on anthologies, periodicals, bibliographies, indexes, and electronic resources on these genres. Containing over 750 entries, this reference source was recommended by critics for libraries. A Booklist contributor felt it would also be "useful as an aid to … collection development and reader's advisory."

In addition to mystery fiction, Bleiler has also compiled reference sources on science and supernatural fiction. In the ambitious Science Fiction, the Early Years: A Full Description of More Than 3,000 Science-Fiction Stories from Earliest Times to the Appearance of the Genre Magazine in 1930: With Author, Title, and Motif Indexes, he and Everett F. Bleiler provide an annotated bibliography to over 3,500 works dating as far back as the third century B.C.E. that were either written in or translated into English. Science-Fiction: The Gernsback Years: A Complete Coverage of the Genre Magazines "Amazing," "Astounding," "Wonder," and Others from 1926 through 1936 concentrates on stories written during the golden age of sci-fi when Hugo Gernsback was editing magazines. Bleiler has also edited the second edition of Science Fiction Writers: Critical Studies of the Major Authors from the Early Nineteenth Century to the Present Day. The book includes ninety-six influential writers from Mary Shelley to modern times. A Booklist contributor called Science Fiction Writers "a valuable reference that will be useful for general interest as well as for reports about an author."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, May 15, 1999, review of Science Fiction Writers: Critical Studies of the Major Authors from the Early Nineteenth Century to the Present Day, p. 1720; July, 1999, Richard Bleiler, review of Science Fiction: The Early Years: A FullDescription of More Than 3,000 Science-Fiction Stories from Earliest Times to the Appearance of the Genre Magazine in 1930: With Author, Title, and Motif Indexes, p. 1722, and Science Fiction Writers, p. 1974; December 15, 1999, review of Reference Guide to Mystery and Detective Fiction, p. 804.

Book Report, September-October, 1999, Charlotte Decker, review of Science Fiction Writers, p. 74.

Choice, June, 1999, L. A. Beinhoff, review of Science Fiction Writers, p. 1758; December, 1999, S. L. Nesbeitt, review of Reference Guide to Mystery and Detective Fiction, p. 686.

Extrapolation, spring, 1994, Donald M. Hassler, review of The Index to Adventure Magazine and The Annotated Index to "The Thrill Book": Complete Indexes to and Descriptions of Everything Published in Street & Smith's "The Thrill Book," pp. 89-90.

Library Journal, June 15, 1999, Peter A. Dollard, review of Science Fiction Writers, p. 72.

School Library Journal, August, 1999, Debbie Feulner, review of Science Fiction Writers, p. 181.*