Here’s a very cool story from the Greater Victoria Public Library in British Columbia, Canada: “Inside a hollow library book, a secret library.” A hollowed out book placed on a library shelf featured a zine library created by an anonymous artist and known about only via word of mouth. It’s a great detective story and a fun idea—I hope it inspires others to try similar projects!
An article in the Williams College student newspaper by Aiden Pham, “Sawyer zine collection celebrates creativity, community,” discusses the zine collection at the college’s Sawyer Library. The collection was created in 2018 in response to “flyers with xenophobic, white supremacist, and anti-Semitic messages circulating in Sawyer library.” The story quotes zinester students and discusses the power of zines to introduce diverse voices into the library.
Laura Arenschield of the Ohio State News wrote an article sharing information about quaranzines at The Ohio State University Libraries: “Skeletor, poetry, hand-made art: Quaranzines tell COVID stories.” Jolie Braun, curator of modern literature and manuscripts for The Ohio State University Libraries, is interviewed about the origin of the collection and what the zines say about the experience of life during the COVID pandemic: “As soon as you open them, there’s going to be something that probably feels familiar or resonates with you, and that’s really powerful,” she said. “But I think it’s also equally interesting and significant that there are all these other zines that really show you other people’s experiences that are maybe very different from your own that you hadn’t really considered or thought about.” Read the full story at Ohio State News.
“Corvallis Zinesters, Local Zine Culture,” a new article in The Corvallis Advocate written by Emilie Ratcliff, explores multiple aspects of the local zine scene in Corvallis, Oregon. Most striking is the zine library at Mt. Caz, a Corvallis-based renegade community art space. The tree-shaped library is maintained by Christina Tran, who also runs zinemaking workshops at the Corvallis-Benton County Public Library. The article also highlights the work of Kelly McElroy, the Student Engagement and Community Outreach Librarian at Oregon State University, who talks about her work teaching classes with zines and helping facilitate zines made as class projects. Read the full article at The Corvallis Advocate.
New article from Liz Ohanesian, “Zine Collections Showcase and Amplify Diverse Voices Even in the Age of Social Media,” highlights the six branches of the Los Angeles Public Library that have zine collections. Librarians Ziba Perez, Angi Brzycki, and Daniel Tures share their thoughts about what zines add to LAPL.
An additional article is also available: “Want to Make a Zine? These Zine Makers Have Tips For Getting Started.”
A group of zine librarians out of the UK are working on creating a new Zine Researchers’ Code of Ethics. They’ll be discussing the drafting process and goals on Wednesday August 18 from 2-4 pm BST. Read more about the idea for a ZRCoE in this post from Lilith Joyce Cooper, and find more info about the August 18 meeting.
The Portland Zine Symposium will be held online on Saturday July 24 and July 25, and along with workshops and talks, there will be a casual, drop-in session just for zine librarians. Kelsey Smith and Aggie Burstein will host the session, which will be Sunday July 25 from 3:30-4:30 pm on Sunday July 25.
Registration is free for all and all are welcome, but you must register in advance for each session during #VirtualPZS2021 that you want to attend in order to receive the Zoom links. Find the full schedule at portlandzinesymposium.org/virtualpzs.
A new exhibit titled “The Fly Zine Archive: A Chronicle of Punk, Queer, and Anarchist Counterculture” is opening at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA) on July 15, 2021. The exhibit will be open through April 2022. The archive consists of nearly 2,000 printed works – zines, comics, pamphlets and more – collected by activist Fly Orr and created by “punk, anarchist, feminist and LGBTQ+ artists.”
Read more about the Fly Zine Archive in this 2020 post from Ian Karp: “Rebel voice: Inside the Fly Zine Archive, a chronicle of punk, queer, and DIY counterculture” and explore more about the creation of the exhibit in this July 2021 article from the University of Minnesota student newspaper, “Recent UMN grad organizes new zine exhibition at Minneapolis Institute of Art.”
Welcome to International Zine Month 2021! IZM is a project created by Alex Wrekk, of Stolen Sharpie Revolution fame, as a way to celebrate many aspects of zines and the zinester community. Every year Alex creates a flyer which provides day-to-day events: find a printable copy and a text version of the info in the flyer at Alex’s IZM page.
Please note that July 21 is Zine Library Day! Plan something special in your library!
On Wednesday May 19th, zine librarians Ziba Perez and Jenna Freedman will be presenting a workshop titled “Overthrow the 10-Page Paperarchy: Manifesto Zines.” They’ll be modeling zine-making as a means of challenging the white patriarchy and exploring the capacity for zines to highlight skills beyond those recognized and valued by the academy.
The workshop is part of the Critical Pedagogy Symposium cosponsored by METRO and ACRLY/NY. Registration is free; find more info at mnylc.org/cps.
Alex (@fanzines on Twitter) is maintaining a Google map of physical shops that sell zines around the world.
Lilith Cooper of the Edinburgh Zine Library, who is working on a PhD at the University of Kent with Wellcome, has shared their presentation and paper on the ethics of doing research with zines.
Missed this chapter when it first came out, but here’s a great lesson plan for undergraduates by librarian Emilee Mathews. She writes, “In this lesson plan, students critically engage the zine’s conceptual underpinnings and material production in order to reflect on their own nascent zine making practice. What meanings are created by appropriating another’s work, particularly that of another zinester, and does the meaning change when the student’s work is accessioned into the same archive in which they found it?”
Check out the open access chapter “Radical Appropriation in Zine Making,” one of the 17 available through ARLIS/NA’s “Fair Use in the Visual Arts: Lesson Plans for Librarians,” published in 2018.
Here’s a terrific blog post about the Edinburgh Zine Library! “For LGBT History Month, a guest blog post from Abi and Lili from the Edinburgh Zine Library” is a featured story on the Edinburgh Libraries blog. EZL is independent but is hosted by the public library (Central Library), making for a very cool relationship. Read about the inspiration behind the library’s creation and the projects that EZL has made happen during COVID-19 closures.
University of Nebraska at Omaha librarians Amy Schindler, Monica Maher, and Claire Du Laney collaborated with instructor Clare Maakestad and students in Introduction to Sociology sections to create zines on environmental topics. Read more about their project, including integration with UNO Libraries Archives and Special Collections, in “New Environmental Zines Combine Creativity and Research.”