Our Mission

The Furry Con Archives is a digital library and physical archive dedicated to preserving all convention history across furry, pony, and broader fan-run conventions. We document and safeguard decades of convention booklets, event schedules, pocket guides, zines, newsletters, maps, and historical ephemera so that convention culture remains accessible for fans, organizers, researchers, and future generations.

We operate as a structured public-interest archive—not a commercial platform or an unorganized file dump. We do not claim ownership of the third-party materials we preserve, and we pair archival access with clear provenance, attribution, and respect for creators.

Why Convention History Needs an Archive

Across decades of fandom events, thousands of artists, writers, panelists, and volunteer organizers have built vibrant communities and produced an extraordinary record of fan culture. Yet convention history is unusually fragile:

• Limited print runs: Convention booklets, pocket programs, and zines are printed in small quantities for a single weekend and are almost never reprinted.
• Ephemeral digital records: Convention websites, online schedule apps, and digital announcements routinely go offline once an event ends, software platforms change, or domains expire.
• Physical wear and lost source files: Paper yellows, staples rust, and layout files from older events are frequently lost to retired drives, obsolete formats, or leadership turnover.
• Organizational turnover: Most conventions are staffed to run an annual event rather than maintain a permanent historical repository. When leftover stock or old boxes have no designated home, years of documentation can disappear quietly.

How the Archive Operates

Our work combines digital archiving, metadata curation, and physical preservation:

• Acquiring & Digitizing: Tracking down convention booklets, souvenir programs, pocket schedules, zines, newsletters, maps, and digital schedule exports from every era of convention history and scanning print items at archival resolution.
• Cataloging & Context: Linking every document and schedule to its convention series, year, dates, venue, theme, and contributor credits so each piece is preserved with its full historical record rather than sitting in an unlabeled folder.
• Physical Preservation: Housing and tracking original printed copies in The Vault so rare and fragile convention publications remain intact for the long term.
• Open Access & Search: Running full-text OCR search, interactive schedule timelines, and public APIs so attendees, organizers, and researchers can freely explore how conventions have evolved.

What We Archive

We preserve all convention history, including both print and digital records:

• Convention booklets (conbooks), souvenir guides, and program books
• Event schedules, panel grids, room maps, and digital schedule exports (including Sched, Guidebook, and Consurf records)
• Pocket guides, newsletters, zines, badges, flyers, and official convention publications
• Historical documentation and publicly distributed materials from furry, pony, and related fandom conventions worldwide

We prioritize publicly distributed convention materials that document event history, creative contributions, and community milestones.

Contributing & Coordinating Materials

We work directly with convention organizers, archivists, and individual collectors to fill gaps in the historical record:

• Digital submissions: Organizers and contributors can share original print-ready PDFs, high-resolution scans, or schedule exports directly through our upload tools or by contacting the team.
• Physical contributions to The Vault: Individuals and conventions can contribute single booklets, archival copies, or older inventory for permanent preservation and cataloging.
• Loan-to-digitize: If you want to keep your physical copies, we can coordinate temporary loans for non-destructive scanning and return the originals to you.

Contact us to coordinate a contribution or loan.

Copyright, Fair Use & Attribution

Furry Con Archives preserves convention materials for noncommercial historical documentation, research, scholarship, and education under U.S. copyright law (including fair use under 17 U.S.C. § 107 and archival principles under 17 U.S.C. § 108) as well as Creative Commons and direct organizer permissions. Specifically, our archive:

• Makes out-of-print and historical convention records available noncommercially for research and educational reference
• Does not claim copyright ownership over third-party artworks, writing, or publications
• Displays license information, convention provenance, and creator attribution whenever available
• Honors removal or attribution update requests from creators, conventions, and rights holders

For a detailed breakdown of how copyright, Creative Commons licenses, and the four fair use factors apply to archived materials, see our Rights & Licensing page.

Creator Requests & Takedowns

Whether you are an artist, writer, convention organizer, or copyright holder, you do not need a formal legal filing just to talk to us. If you would like attribution updated, licensing clarified, or a work removed from public view, please reach out and we will handle it promptly.

When submitting a removal request, please include:

• Your name and contact information
• The specific document, schedule, or page URL(s) concerned
• Your relationship to the material (creator, convention representative, or rights holder)
• Whether you are requesting an attribution/license update or removal

Privacy and Data

We are committed to responsible archival practices and visitor privacy:

• We collect only the minimal operational data needed to run the site and process voluntary submissions
• Document view and search statistics are aggregated and anonymized
• Donor and contributor credits are published only in accordance with contributor preferences
• Historical convention publications are preserved as published, and we respond promptly to privacy concerns regarding contemporary personal information

Community & Research Use

The Furry Con Archives is a shared resource for the fandom and research community. Visitors are asked to:

• Respect the artists, writers, panelists, and organizers whose work appears in the archive
• Credit original creators, conventions, and publication years when citing or referencing archived materials
• Observe the applicable license terms or fair use limits for any downstream use
• Report metadata corrections, broken files, or rights inquiries so we can keep the catalog accurate

Contact

For general questions, archival contributions, metadata corrections, or rights inquiries, reach out to our team:

For copyright or takedown requests, please email [email protected].