Breakout Sesh 1, 7/29/16, Building Collections

6 folks currently working with a collection
5 folks looking to build a collection
Expand a collection
Create collection development plan
Predominantly academic collection
Student attendees — living in hypothetical/looking to learn

Simmons started with $100, which is a lot of money considering how much they cost.

Convincing people to go along
Approach sociology faculty, one professor has an Inequality class (sociology/nursing class) who wasn’t sure if students knew what they were but turns out they were really into it. Because of her the class has taken off — 4th year of doing class.

Zinester librarian also, I table and pick up zines that way, zinester friends, purchase zines: portland ubtton works, sweet candy, quimby’s, recluse, etsy page (OK with red tape that it’s ok to purchase from Etsy: purchase with a credit card, but issues with zinesters who only accept paypal).

Sign a consent form from zinester acknowledging the use of zine: circulating/archives
–student zine originals go to archives

Use tags instead of keyword

Different models of zine library: circulating, archives, and hybrid… digitization for rare materials? But do we know if it is super rare to choose where the zine should go — enter zine union catalog to see who else has the zine.

Where to keep the collection? Hybrid with circulate one and archive one? Or have a nook to showcase them but not let them circulate. Simmons: fully circulate, only student-generated work gets archived.

Subject/scope division: local history = circulating, history = archived

No one from a public library, but one person wants to work in one.

2 barefoot librarians: one collection circulates if there is >1 copy.

Collection Policies: Objectionable content discussion came up last year… policies provide a parameter from which to work.

Zinelibraries.info: collections policy primer on the website with examples; code of ethics has resources for things to think about when starting the resource.

Papercut: solely donated for the last 11 years from zinesters themselves and also from collectors.

Zinesters may or may not be ok with having their zine in your collection. Donations are not no-strings-attached.

Be explicit with what you’re going to do with your zines when you get them — deaccessioning, being part of an exhibit?, not accepting a zine and then letting people know what you’ll do with unwanted zines (donate to another library, etc.)

Experience with splitting of zine library with housing institutions? Fluctuating locations of independent zine libraries/collections. Splitting collection into different sub-collections — needed separate policies/space Long Haul

Wellesley collection: started by donation from zine collector, now acquiring new titles, student-created zines are just kept in protective sleeves in boxes marked as “student zines” — seeking more transparency with students about use of zines. If we’re not cataloging student zines, how do we provide access (privacy issues) — classed/cataloged differently from rest of library and zine materials — need meaningful arrangement. Zines circulate, which is different standards (within-Wellesley, non-ILL), but student zines are just a sign-out sheet. Building the collection (loosey-goosey budget)

Classes where students make zines and professor chooses 3 “best” zines to archive — and they get cataloged (UT Austin)

Catalog at a collection level for privacy issues?

MICA (Maryland Inst. Coll. Art): Acq: zine artist books collected from book fairs and artists/creators; not a lot of provenance provided. Throughout transitions, new director interested in zines. Comix donation of gay erotica, donor wants to remain anonymous, difficult to exhibit bc lack of context. Need to develop a collection development policy and get part of library budget to purchase zines. Being an art and design school, we have a lot of courses where they make artist books/ illustration is big area. We would purchase from the student creators bc the artist goes on to sell their books on their own.

Institutional buy-in
Simmons: Anti-oppression guide: literally going door to door we want to bring it to the faculty to create awareness and to incorporate materials into the course development, have it be another avenue for primary resource
Building support/allies, cross-departments
Get tech svcs as part of the process: group project
Often most difficult to get buy-in from cataloging cuz they’re bizarro materials to catalog

GLBT library with a library advisory board and they provided guidance for zine collection

Tying collection to teaching that’s going on. Zinelibraries.info: Teaching info literacy with zines; zines.barnard.edu has resources.

Processing:
How to catalog, Classification, where to put the barcode, security tape, circ or non, bags, folders
Successful ideas:
Decide what you want your collection to do
– Wanted people to read them: minimal processing, no security tags, with barcode
– Fine arts library: interfiled throughout collection, but website with scanned covers — to interfile or not? But would like to have them as a collection?

Gaylord, Hollinger: to buy mylar sleeves

DIY archives (McKnabb Archives): nearly a dark archive, with a zine collection; minimal budget. Purchase directly from creators, then distros. Tension with cataloging. Consent form so they know what they’re getting into. Sometimes I don’t know who created it and don’t have that info; cataloged at collection level.

Some folks use excel as their catalog
Personal collection: spreadsheet with zinecore fields.

Crowd-sourcing to get bibliographic information?

Zine assistant putting info into excel spreadsheet and use MarcEdit to import into catalog — Don’t feel bad about using Excel/Google spreadsheets!

Assistant: reads all the zines and precataloging (extent, binding, size, pg #s) with keywords that cataloger can LCSH them, saves cataloger’s time.

Artist books: a lot of it is about the binding. No provenance — looking to add and have it be searchable, search by color.

Digitization: as entry-point to collection. Librarian who handled it beforehand had grad student scan covers as a separate project and it went into the cat record. Pushing for more digitization with complete digitization as part of workflow for archival material. Feature one every month on our libguide. Want to add them to the flow catalog.

Scanning key content and putting that in the catalog — adding an image into the catalog. Some can.

Use artstor and shared shelf to scan covers to use in catalog.

How can a union catalog serve everyone in this group? Copy cataloging, subject thesauri… without big institutional resources that we can share.

(notetaker = Rhonda, and please edit!)