ZLuC 2019 will be held in Salt Lake City

Posted on December 17, 2018 by Violet

The ZLuC 2019 Site Selection Committee is pleased to announce that the 2019 Zine Librarians unConference will be held in Salt Lake City, Utah! They’ll have three organizations helping to make ZLuC 2019 happen: Grid Zine Fest, the Salt Lake City Public Library, and the Marriott Library at the University of Utah. Their exciting and thoughtful proposal made it clear that ZLuC in SLC will be absolutely amazing!!

Organizers will announce a date as soon as possible, but they expect it to be in the summer of 2019.

Thank you so much to the folks who submitted proposals and to the members of the 2019 selection committee: Sharon McKellar, Violet Fox, Jolie Braun, Elissah Becknell, and Elizabeth Bastyr.

Michigan State punk exhibit highlights zine collection

Posted on November 28, 2018 by Violet

Michigan State University has an extensive collection of zines, and many of them are on display on the new punk exhibit in MSU Libraries Special Collections. Exhibit curator Joshua Barton describes the zeitgeist of punk zines and highlights the uniqueness of the collection in this article from the Lansing City Pulse.

Accepting proposals to host ZLuC 2019

Posted on November 2, 2018 by Violet

We’re now looking for proposals to host the 2019 Zine Librarians unConference! Find the proposal submission form here: https://goo.gl/forms/RdJKOqJpuvZVKPq62.

Please note the shorter submission period this year: the proposal submission deadline is Friday November 30th.

For more information about hosting ZLuC, explore the websites of previous ZLuCs and view the newly created ZLuC Organizers Toolkit. The ZLuC 2019 site selection committee (Elizabeth Bastyr, Elissah Becknell, Jolie Braun, Violet Fox, and Sharon McKellar) is excited to see your proposal!

ZLuC Organizers Toolkit

Posted on November 1, 2018 by Violet

The ZLuC Organizers Toolkit is now available! The document is intended to be a living document, so feel free to add or edit information.

ZLuC organizer toolkit draft

Posted on October 4, 2018 by Violet

The Zine Librarians unConference (ZLuC) is an annual-ish gathering of library/archives workers, zinesters, and anyone who cares about zines in libraries and archives. ZLuC started in 2009 and has moved around the U.S. in order to allow people from a variety of areas to attend.

In order to facilitate the organization of this unconference, a draft of a ZLuC Organizer Toolkit has been created. This document should be useful to people who are interested in hosting ZLuC at their institution. If you’ve attended or organized ZLuC or a similar unconference, please take a look at the draft and add content or let us know what’s missing.

Thoughts on zine librarianship from Salford

Posted on July 22, 2018 by Violet

Ingrid, one of the folks who helps run the Salford Zine Library in England, has a great post up about zine librarianship. She discusses issues that come in a zine library and the approaches the volunteer staff take in addressing those issues, which are informed by but can be different than those in traditional libraries.

In this post Ingrid touches on digitization, cataloging, and the broad concern about respecting and seeking out zinesters’ consent in having very personal material available within a public space. Looking forward to reading more of Ingrid’s thoughts as the SZL volunteers thoughtfully contend with these important considerations.

International Zine Library Day

Posted on July 20, 2018 by Violet

Once again the time is upon us to commemorate International Zine Library Day, observed every July 21st! Read more about the event and figure out a great way to celebrate, whether by visiting your local zine library, donating your zines to a library that collects zines, or sharing your thanks with those who make zine libraries happen. Find a zine library near you using Barnard Zine Library’s worldwide list. Use hashtag #IZM2018 to follow along with all the International Zine Month events.

A heartfelt thank you to all the zine library workers out there who help to make zines accessible to everyone in a myriad of different ways. Please be sure to take time to treat yourself today!

ZLuC 2018 is a wrap!

Posted on July 18, 2018 by Violet

Thanks to everyone who was able to attend the 2018 Zine Librarians unConference! If you attended, please complete this quick 5-question survey to let us know how ZLuC 2019 can be even better.

I’m grateful to the rest of the ZLuC 2018 organizing team (Elissah Becknell, Elizabeth Bastyr, Deborah Boudewyns, Lindsay Keating, and Margit Wilson) as well as the hard working staff and students at our three venues: Minneapolis Community and Technical College, University of Minnesota Libraries, and Hennepin County Libraries.

Thanks to unofficial ZLuC photographer Eric for the glorious group pics.

large group photo of people standing on a railing

photo by Eric Goldhagen, click to see within Flickr photostream

Register now for ZLuC 2018

Posted on July 5, 2018 by Violet

There’s been such a great response to the 2018 Zine Librarians unConference! To ensure we have enough space (and food) for everyone, we’ll be cutting off registration soon. Please register by end of day Sunday July 8 if you’re planning to attend: http://zinelibraries.info/wiki/zluc-2018-msp/registration.

If you’ve registered and you’re looking for more info, you’ll find all the info at http://zinelibraries.info/wiki/zluc-2018-msp.

See you July 12-14 in Minneapolis!

Zine librarians share faves from their collections

Posted on June 14, 2018 by Violet

The Washington Post‘s The Lily recently published a 22-page zine in celebration of its first anniversary, and Lily digital editor Ashley Nguyen talked to a number of zine librarians and enthusiasts to talk about what zines mean to them and why libraries collect zines. Zine librarians consulted include:

Malana Krongelb (Brown University)
Meg Metcalf (Library of Congress)
Shannon Keller (New York Public Library)
Kelly Wooten (Duke University)
Jenna Freedman (Barnard College)
Hana Zittel (Denver Zine Library, Denver Public Library)
Jeremy Brett (Texas A&M University)

Take a moment to check out the article and the great list of some of the contributors’ favorite zines from their libraries’ collections!