The ZLuC 2026 location committee decided that we need to recognize that many in our community likely have anxiety around travel in the current political climate in the US.Exciting to see this invitation to attend and present at Zine Archives Montreal 2025 from Louis Rastelli, Programming Coordinator (archives@arcmtl.org).
On Our Shelves, On Our Terms
Zine Archives Montreal 2025
November 12–14, 2025
Part of the Expozine International Independent Publishing Festival and Fair, November 11-16
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
INVITATION / Call for proposals (deadline Sept. 30)
The ARCMTL archive centre and Expozine are happy to inform you of the upcoming conference on zine archives and libraries, Zine Archives Montreal 2025, with this year’s theme: On Our Shelves, On Our Terms.
The conference will take place during the week of Expozine 2025, from November 11 to 16, when all of Montreal is abuzz with zine energy ahead of the Expozine fair, North America’s largest zine and small press fair with over 240 participating publishers and self-publishing artists and writers.
Activities will include visits to several archive centres and libraries with zine collections in Montreal on November 12, and two days of presentations, discussions and activities on November 13 and 14. Special guests from varied zine archives and libraries from outside Montreal, along with local actors will discuss issues and challenges related to this very specialized field.
All programming will be free and open to the general public, whose interest in zines in general has been growing in recent years. The programming team would also be delighted to hear your suggestions, ideas and proposals for activities, visits to institutions, topics or ideas for themes for discussion, round tables or workshops. We also invite participants to prepare a short video of their own zine library or archive, which will be shown during the conference.
Preliminary programming will feature topics such as:
Please email us with any further ideas, proposals or questions before September 30, 2025, and feel free to forward this message to other potential partners and guests that may be interested in taking part.
Detailed programming will be announced publicly by October 15, 2025.
Lastly, NOTE that ARCMTL can assist with funding requests for travel to Montreal, for example, by providing an official letter of invitation.
It’s time to register for the 2025 Zine Librarians unConference! ZLuC 2025 will be held entirely online Saturday November 8 and Sunday November 9. Registration will be open until November 1st. The cost of attending is free to those with no professional development funds, and a sliding scale for those who have institutional support to attend.
If you’d like to propose a session, the deadline is Friday September 26th. ZLuC is always a great time and this year will include presenters and attendees from around the world. Find all the information and links to register at the ZLuC 2025 webpage.
ZLuC 2025: Registration is now open!
Found a great minizine by longtime zinester Brigette of Commonplace Zines titled “Zine Community Guide.” Brigette shares thoughts about what makes the zine community nurturing and accepting, sharing these guidelines in the hopes of keeping what’s great about the community:
Download the one-page zine for printing at the Commonplace Zines substack.
Are you an archivist who makes zines? Does your repository or library have a zine? SAA (the Society of American Archivists) will have a zine table at their annual conference in Anaheim in August 2025 and they’re inviting attendees to bring 10–15 copies of their zine to hand out.
The organizers of the Zine Librarians unConference 2025 are looking for presentation speakers! Are you interested in sharing your ideas? Let the organizers know more about what you’d like to see at the ZLuC 2025 programming interest form.
This year’s ZLuC will be entirely online and free to all, with programming happening Saturday November 8 and Sunday November 9.
July is International Zine Month! Back in 2009, zinester Alex Wrekk started International Zine Month, and we’ve all joined in since then. Thanks to Alex for creating this gorgeous poster giving us something to celebrate each day of #IZM2025. Note that July 21st is Zine Library Day—the traditional way to celebrate is visiting your favorite in person or online zine collection (and bringing a delicious treat to your favorite zine librarian!).
IZM2025-posterBig thanks to everyone who attended the American Library Association annual conference and visited the Zine Pavilion! If you contributed to the Zine Pavilion 2025 Collaborative Zine, you can print out a copy for yourself (use “print on the short side” or “booklet” settings). We had so many contributions that we had to split them into two parts!
Download both issues on the Zine Pavilion itch.io account.
ZinePavilionCollaborativeZine_Part1 ZinePavilionCollaborativeZine_Part2Over on the Zines & GLAM Discord, Laura Chenault always does a great job of keeping up with new blog posts, videos, and other resources about zines. One new video she highlighted caught my attention, Zine Signs by Deaf zinester Emmett. Emmett demonstrates ASL (American Sign Language) signs for zine-related terms such as comic, copy, make, collage, festival, pay, and more. Watch the video (remember you can adjust the playback speed if you need to see it done more slowly) and practice these signs for your next zine event!
The organizers of the Zine Pavilion are busy getting ready for the 2025 Zine Pavilion at the American Library Association conference in Philadelphia. The hours of the Zine Pavilion are the same as the ALA exhibit hall hours:
If you’re attending ALA, please come visit us! We’ll have hundreds of zines on display and zinesters from the Philly area will be selling their zines.
location of the Zine Pavilion on the ALA exhibit hall floor— booth number 1862
We’ll also have multiple events happening at the Zine Pavilion! Those events include:
A news article in The Richmonder describes the creation of Celebrating Trans Joy: Building Communities, a 100+-page zine sponsored by the ACLU-Virginia. The article, Richmond’s Trans Community Embraces an Underground Literary Form: The Zine, discusses the importance of trans visibility in libraries such as the Library of Virginia and the Richmond Independent Zine Library.
cover of the book Celebrating Trans Joy: Building Communities
REFORMA, the The National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish-Speaking, will host a webinar about Latino-created zines on Tuesday May 20th. “Latino Zines: Celebrating Our Cultures and Communities”
will also discuss the libraries that are developing zine collections to preserve and share these unique creations. Speakers:
Excited to learn about La Fanzinoteca del Museo Universitario del Chopo (the zine library at the Museo Universitario del Chopo, part of the National Autonomous University of Mexico) in Mexico City. Multiple collections highlight different topics such as alternative comics, contemporary Mexican fanzines, and punk culture in Mexico. Full scans of many zines are available on the site in addition to finding aids.
Very cool to see this Greater Boston Zine Library Crawl happen in April 2025! The Zine Crawl Passport has a list of locations; by visiting the libraries, participants can win zine making supplies and physical zines.
Participating public and academic libraries include:
*BPL participating branches include:
Excited to hear about the new Zines Forever! DIY Publications and Disability Justice exhibit at the Wellcome Collection in London. The display draws on some of the 1,300 zines at the Wellcome and “explores how the making and sharing of zines can further disability activism and political resistance and serve as a vehicle for community building and mutual support.”
