10 thoughts on “Code of Ethics – Acquisitions

  1. I really like “Because the creators of zines often lose money (or barely break even) on their creations, financially supporting zinesters by purchasing directly from them can help sustain their ability to keep making zines. In addition, purchasing zines demonstrates respect for the value of the zinester’s work.” I think it would be stronger to end it there. The next bit “However, a library’s zine-purchasing budget may be very small (or non-existent), so donations may be a large portion of acquisitions. In general, it’s better to have donated zines in your collection than none at all!” is true, of course, but I’d rather not cede that right away. Could it go at the end? Or not appear at all?!?

    • I like this, too, and I would vote to retain the entire passage, or at least the sense of it. Something, anyway, that both stresses the validity of donations as a source of acquisitions and proposes that, when feasible, purchases of materials should be considered more appropriate because funds are going to support zinesters and their work.

    • Even with that said, I’m not sure I like the idea of a formal ranking of methods of acquisitions. I think this might seem too limiting and would unnecessarily restrict institutions as to what they try to acquire. Also, although I agree that overall purchases are more considerate to zinesters than donations because they supply money to the creators, to suggest that purchases are somehow more ‘ethical’ than donations is unfair particularly to public institutions that more likely than not won’t have funds available for large purchases of zines. So sme may have to make a choice between ethics and having a fuller collection.

  2. Should #2 include independent bookstores? Or would that go under zine distros, as a 2a, or something like that? I think buying from Bluestockings or Quimbys is as legit as buying from a distro.

  3. I think deaccessioning recommendations belong in this section. I feel like “potential problems” could also go farther down or be lightened up a little. We don’t want to give administrators ammunition, but of course we do want to be honest about what the challenges are.

  4. Would it be worthwhile to get into how punk and zines are sometimes perceived or portrayed as primarily white, middle class activities, thereby erasing people of color from the narrative and history, as additional fodder for acquiring zines by POC in the underrepresented voices section?

  5. “Zines are much more than the zines themselves. Zinesters who send or trade zines through the mail often add things in the envelope to their readers (like stickers, personal letters, candy, toys) and ornately decorate the envelopes. These additional items may offer additional research or interest to patrons. Zine librarians should consider which items, if any, should be collected (and how to make note of these in the catalog record).”

    This is a very good point, but I wonder if this is more of a processing issue, that could go into a set of zine processing guidelines.

  6. “Zine librarians/archivists should strive to promote a variety of viewpoints in the zines in their collection. The very heart of zines is their ability to give voice to those who are not traditionally represented in libraries/archives, so it is vital to include zines from underrepresented populations, with consideration to zines created by people of different races/ethnicities, genders, classes, ages, abilities, sexual orientations, and so on.”

    This is so very true, and I love the sentiment. Again, though, what an institution collects – including the variety of voices – will depend on its own collecting strategy, which might be much more specific.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *