Three minutes, three questions – that’s all it takes. The Tolkien Fandom Oral History Collection is looking for more volunteers to record their experiences as Tolkien fans. I did it! It was fun and informal, though the three minutes were up before I knew it.
You can schedule an interview by following the link on this page. There are three questions you’ll be asked: When did you first encounter the works of J.R.R. Tolkien? Why are you a fan? What has he meant to you? The goal is ambitious: to collect 6,000 interviews, the number of Théoden’s riders who came to the aid of Gondor.
This digital collection is a project led by William Fliss, the Tolkien Archivist at Marquette University in Milwaukee and is just one part of their Tolkien collections, which include original manuscripts, a vast collection of fanzines, and other Tolkien-related materials. Why all this Tolkien stuff in Milwaukee? Read the story behind the archive and what it contains here: https://www.marquette.edu/library/archives/tolkien.php