If you’re a zinester or a librarian, consider taking this interesting new survey: Imagining Relationships Between Zine Creators and Zine Librarians. It’s part of a research project by Al Cassada at the University of Alabama considering the best ways for zine librarians to build relationships with zine creators. Participants from non-U.S. areas are welcome to take the survey; however, it’s only available in English. The survey takes about 15 minutes and will be open until November 1st. I’m looking forward to seeing the results!

One of our zine librarian colleagues from England, Lilith Cooper. has shared their recently published PhD thesis titled The zINe-Between: A Creative Practice Exploration of Health, Liminality, Lived Experience and the Zines in Wellcome Collection. The abstract describes its scope:

Wellcome Collection, a museum and library in London, UK, has intentionally collected zines around health, medicine and the human condition since 2016. The outcome of a Collaborative Doctoral Award with Wellcome Collection, this creative practice thesis explores some of these 1000+ zines, alongside selected zines outside the collection, grouped around three themes: zines made in, from or about beds; zines which involve becoming disabled; and zines created during the COVID-19 pandemic. This exploration moves between physical and digital zines, feeling out both their distinct qualities and the space between them as a route into contemporary zine (re)production, cultures and communities.

This project is composed of two interwoven parts: a collection of original zines created over its duration and an accompanying critical thesis. Through a creative methodology which brings together zine making, autoethnographic and phenomenological approaches to zines, and semi-structured interviews with librarians at Wellcome, I argue that the concept of liminality offers a productive framework for examining material, cultural and political aspects of contemporary zines’ content, production and communities of practice. In turn, the thesis contributes to a reconceptualisation of liminality, beyond the carefully managed processes of transition described in ethnographic accounts, as ongoing, affective, embodied, messy, and non-linear.

Both drawing on and extending interdisciplinary theories of liminality, the thesis focuses on zines made from and about spaces (sickbeds), experiences (becoming disabled) and times (the COVID-19 pandemic) that are in-between, transitional, or transformative. Whilst narrative approaches and approaches that prioritise the usefulness of lived experience to medicine, research or policy often treat liminality as a period of chaos, nonsense or absence, these zines made of and from the in-between offer insight into these periods of liminality in experiences of health, illness and disability. They hold space for the episodic, fragmented and non-linear, engage in affective sense-making, (re)produce third-space knowledges and prioritise the uses of lived experience for peers.

Within the original set of zines created alongside this thesis are zines which directly addresses the concerns of chapters, zines which involve and document wider practices of reproduction, distribution, and collection, as well as those which challenge or disrupt conventions of academic research. Zine making, as a practice-based research method, offers a generative approach to both an archival collection which is proximal, intimate, living, and liminal, and to archival objects which are visual-material-textual, records of practices and processes, and traces of communities of practice as much as products. Produced from the liminal positionality of doctoral research, these zines echo the ways that the zines in Wellcome Collection document and inhabit liminal experiences, spaces and times.

I loved the article “Dreams of Zines” by librarian/archivist Sophie Ziegler in the Louisiana-focused magazine 64 Parishes. They quote Louisiana State University student Adrienne Lewis: “When I visit a new place, I always try to find where the zines are. Every time I find zines, I find my people.”

The second half of the article discusses zine collections in archives and special collections around Louisiana and highlights library outreach efforts oriented around zines. Well worth a read!

The University of Colorado at Colorado Springs has a new zine collection, as announced in the article Kraemer Family Library Launches Zine Collection. The collection resulted from a project by UCCS librarian Liz Brown through the Radical Librarian Institute, organized by the California Rare Book School. The Radical Librarian Institute also funded $250 grants to student zinesters from diverse backgrounds (read about that in the announcement The Kraemer Family Library is Building a Zine Collection and We Want You!).The UCCS student newspaper also wrote about the new zine collection in the article “Library Zine Collection Brings UCCS Student’s Passions and Creativity to the Forefront” by Livi Davis.

A seven-week zine-making course was recently offered at the Braille Institute in Los Angeles as part of the programming of their library. A Radical Librarianship Institute project designed the course for blind adult and youth students. Read all about it in the Summer 2024 issue of Scene, newsletter of the Braille Institute.

Our friend and zine scholar Kiyoshi Murakami recently gave a presentation on how important the local aspect of zine culture can be. You can see his presentation notes online: Zine Culture and Locality/Regionality: The Significance of Practices Derived from That Relationship (consider using DeepL for a more accurate translation). Murakami describes the significance of small local publishers to cultural formation in local communities. He also talks about the usefulness of zine events like workshops or zine fests, and recommends zine archiving as a valuable practice, suggesting that zine libraries might best be created in partnership with public libraries, public museums, and community centers.

The Read/Write Library in Chicago has a pop-up exhibit happening now through July 21st at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum. After being closed for three years, it’s great to see the library back in action! The Read/Write Library collects books, comics, journals, newspapers, and zines published by those in the Chicago area.

The pop-up also included an abridged history of the library written by founder and executive director Nell Taylor.

• February 2006: In the middle of a blizzard, forty strangers gather at the now-defunct Mercury Cafe in West Town to discuss the project. People bring materials to donate, and more keep coming after. Volunteer librarians and archivists convene weekly in my Humboldt Park apartment to devise new approaches to cataloging and presenting collections that prioritize representation and self-determination. At first, we would call it Chicago Underground Library, using media to connect the dots between different creative communities—ones that might exist for only brief moments in apartment galleries, basement DIY venues, or purely as ephemera. Very quickly, we expanded beyond creative material to draw connections between neighborhoods, cultural and political movements, and everyday residents of the city.
• Fall 2006: We move the growing collection into a filing cabinet in the basement of MoJoe’s Hot House, a coffee shop in Avondale. Anyone interested could learn how to catalog the library material through our Cataloging Socials.
• Fall 2007: MoJoe’s is sold. The collection finds a new home at Butchershop, a gallery and studios for artists and musicians on Lake Street. Still humble in size, the growing library now occupies two filing cabinets.
• Winter 2008: The arts and activism-focused publication AREA Chicago and the artist residency inCUBATE form the Orientation Center in a storefront at the Congress Theater in Logan Square, and invite the Underground Library to be a partner in the space.
• Winter 2010: Center closes. We move the collection into the lobby of Red Tape Theater, in the parish house of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in East Lakeview.
• January 2011: Another Chicago blizzard blows open the windows of the parish house and buries half the collection in snow. Thanks to quick work by conservation volunteers, most of the materials are salvaged (you may notice some crinkly zines here). The library leaves St. Peters; we begin programming Pop Up Libraries in Uptown, Logan Square, and elsewhere throughout the city to keep the collection public as we look for a new home.
• Fall 2011: The library returns to Humboldt Park in a new and permanent location, and we change its name to Read/Write Library in recognition of its unique, participatory, and community-driven nature. Pop Up Libraries continue as a regular part of the programming, tailored to the locations and audiences of our partner schools, arts and community centers, and others across the city—even in other cities and states.
• Winter 2017: After years of developing our programs, we triple the size of our Humboldt Park space, making room for expanded activities and collection access. As the collection reaches new audiences, it continues to grow, filling out the larger space.
• Winter 2021: The gentrification of Humboldt Park catches up with us. Rising rental costs force Read/Write Library to leave after a decade in the neighborhood, fifteen years after we first convened there. The collection goes dark, placed in storage.
• Spring 2024: Read/Write Library returns! With the summer Pop Up Library at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, one of Chicago’s historic centers of community-driven cultural production, we are excited to reopen the library to readers and contributors.

July is International Zine Month!! IZM was created in 2009 by Alex Wrekk (Stolen Sharpie Revolution, Brainscan, etc.) to celebrate zines and zinesters. There’s a list of suggested activities at Alex’s website, Stolen Sharpie Revolution. Use hashtag #IZM2024 to share what you’re doing. Make a special note of Sunday July 21st, which is Zine Library Day! The traditional way to recognize Zine Library Day is by visiting a zine library and bringing them a tasty snack. Consider planning an event in your library!

The 2024 International Zine Month flyer was created by Alex Wrekk.

Love this image! It was created by Nina Zina of Echo Zines, a feminist zine distro.

image by Nina Zina of Echo Zines