Basically, we're fandom historians on a mission. The Furry Con Archives is a community-driven digital library dedicated to preserving the history and culture of furry conventions—the real stuff that matters. We collect, digitize, and share rare conbooks, zines, flyers, and other artifacts so fans and historians can explore the roots and evolution of the fandom. Our goal is to make these materials accessible, permanent, and easy to discover for everyone.

Some people collect CDs, video games, or a very specific kind of vintage toy. Those hobbies look normal because the objects are already treated as valuable. Collecting furry convention materials is the same kind of special interest—just one that often gets called obsessive or strange because the stuff was printed to be disposable.

This archive is the public product of that interest. We digitize and share conbooks, zines, and related ephemera so they are not only sitting in someone else's drawer, landfill, or forgotten storage box. We cannot casually change what we care about. We can put that focus to work for the fandom.

This archive belongs to the community—not to us, not to any one person. We're serious about long-term preservation. If our team can't keep it running, the archive gets transferred to a trusted community member or established historical group. The point is: once something's here, it stays here. We're not going anywhere, and neither are your favorite conbooks.

All the stuff that makes fandom real:

• Conbooks and event programs
• Newsletters, zines, and flyers
• Historical documents and records
• Community art and artifacts
• Pretty much anything with cultural significance

Okay, so imagine the yearbook from high school, but actually fun and with way better art. A conbook is the official "yearbook" of a furry convention—the physical souvenir that everyone takes home and actually treasures. It's part guidebook, part art portfolio, part autograph book, and 100% nostalgia fuel.

During the day, you're flipping through it for maps and schedules to navigate the madness. At night, you're handing it to your favorite artists for signatures and sketches. Years later, you're still pulling it off the shelf going "oh man, I remember this." Even with fancy digital apps these days, the conbook is still the one physical thing people hoard as proof they were there. It's basically fandom archaeology.

We've got multiple ways to dig around and find what you're looking for:

• By Title: Search specific document names
• Full-Text Search: Find keywords in actual document content (OCR-extracted)
• By Metadata: Filter by artist, convention, year, or description
• By Category: Browse by year, convention, or material type

Yep! Every published document is yours to grab. Just hit the "Download PDF" button on any document page. We track PDF views in Umami so we know what people actually care about and can prioritize what to digitize next.

Please! Seriously, we're always hunting for stuff we don't have yet. Whether you've got a dusty scan from a 90s con in your closet or a brand-new digital PDF from last month, it helps us build a more complete timeline of our history. Contact us with what you've got, and we'll figure out the rest. Bonus: you get bragging rights as a contributor to fandom history.

Our preservation policy outlines how we handle documents, copyright, and takedown requests. For detailed information, please see our Preservation Policy page.

Absolutely—it's free and always will be. We believe history should be accessible to everyone, not locked behind a paywall. If you want to download a PDF, search for your favorite con, or just browse at 2am looking for nostalgia, go for it. No ads, no subscriptions, no weirdness.

Please don't throw them away. What looks like clutter to you is often exactly what we are looking for.

A stack of old conbooks in a closet, leftover inventory from a con, or a box someone inherited and never opened—those are the materials that usually disappear, not because anyone hates history, but because nobody knows what else to do with them. We do.

One copy or a whole shelf: contact us. Condition does not have to be perfect.

Most of the time, it is not malice. Conventions are built to run events, not to be museums. Leftover stock, older books, and random boxes of paper become a storage problem with no clear owner.

• No plan for the clutter: Extra copies after registration, damaged stock, or old promo piles just sit there until someone needs the space.
• Forgotten, then gone: Materials end up in closets, volunteer houses, or storage units for years. They are not being curated—they are being postponed. A move, a flood, or a leadership change finishes the job.
• Low print runs: Smaller cons may only have printed a few hundred copies. Once those are gone, there is often no replacement source.
• It does not look valuable: To people outside this special interest, a stack of old programs looks like junk mail with better art.

If you work for a convention and have leftover stock, older inventory, or boxes you do not know what to do with: talk to us before they become trash by default. Contact us and we can figure out logistics.

A lot of older conbooks were printed cheaply, in small numbers, and then stored wherever space happened to exist—basements, attics, garages, forgotten storage units. That combination is rough:

• Cheap paper: Yellows, goes brittle, and tears easily after a couple of decades.
• Staples: Rust and stain adjacent pages.
• Tiny print runs: If your copy is damaged or tossed, there may not be many others left.
• Lost digital originals: Especially for 2000s-era books, the layout files often vanished with old drives and dead software. The printed copy someone took home may be the only reliable record of how the book looked.

If you have older books, even imperfect ones, reach out before they get too fragile to handle or too easy to throw away.

It sounds easy, and we understand why people try it. In practice, unlabeled mixed piles usually sit until after the event—and then become another box nobody knows what to do with. Direct contact works better: we can say what we still need, what we already have, and how to get materials here without them disappearing into limbo.

Leftover stock and bulk extras are still welcome. A pile of extras is not scrap; it is part of the record. Reach out if you want us to take a look.

We digitize what we can, keep materials findable online, and document what we receive. If you need originals back, loan-to-digitize is often possible. Shipping support may be available depending on the situation.

We are a small project built around a special interest, not a giant institutional archive with unlimited facilities. What we do offer is focus: we actually want these materials, we know what gaps matter, and we will not treat leftover stock as an inconvenience.

Contact us and we will work from there.

We're committed to long-term preservation, and we have safeguards in place to ensure the archive survives even if funding becomes tight. This is a core part of our mission.

If we ever face financial difficulties that threaten our ability to continue operations, we will:

• Prioritize keeping the archive online and accessible
• Transfer our complete archive to a trusted community member or established historical organization
• Make our entire database and collection publicly available so the community can help preserve it
• Ensure no materials are ever lost or discarded

This history belongs to the community, not to any single organization. We're just the current custodians, and we take that responsibility seriously.

Nobody is coming after you. Most people who throw these things out are not trying to erase history—they are clearing space, ending a storage bill, or dealing with boxes that never had a next step.

From our side of this hobby, though: once a low-print-run book is gone, it is often gone. That is why we ask people to talk to us first if they are about to discard a collection, leftover inventory, or a box they do not know what to do with. We would rather take the "clutter" than watch it become landfill by default.

First off: thanks for wanting to help. The archive runs on community support—storage costs money, digitization equipment costs money, keeping the servers running costs money.

We're working on setting up donation options. Want to help keep this project alive? Get in touch and let us know how you'd like to contribute. We're building support options like:

• One-time donations
• Monthly recurring support
• Specific project sponsorships
• Cryptocurrency donations
• In-kind contributions (equipment, services, etc.)

All donations go directly toward keeping the archive running and helping us digitize more materials. We deeply appreciate every contribution, whether it's $1 or $1,000!

Not officially (yet). We could pursue non-profit status, but honestly? The administrative overhead, legal red tape, and tax filings would eat time and energy that's better spent actually preserving stuff. We're committed to the mission of keeping these materials safe and accessible, and we're willing to do the boring parts without the paperwork.

Real talk: Since we're not a registered non-profit, donations aren't tax deductible. We totally get if that matters to you—we're still grateful for any support we can get.