Dollops for Donuts, a podcast about the music history of Denver, interviewed Kelly Shortandqueer about the origins and growth of the Denver Zine Library. The podcast episode is well worth a listen if you’re interested in how zine libraries get started and how they can sustain growth thoughtfully! There’s also discussion of ZineCat (the Zine Union Catalog) at the 55-minute mark.
Author Archives: Violet
Free webinar on Georgia State University Library’s zine initiatives
The webinar “Have You Zine This?: Georgia State University Library’s Zine Initiative” was presented by Jennie Law, Charlene Martoni, & Anna Wodny earlier this month. You can view the webinar slides and recording at the Georgia Library Association’s Carterette Series site. Particularly helpful are the budgets that detail how much the library spent on initial setup for circulating and in-house zine-making kits. The presenters also share ideas for zine workshop themes and info about their zine analysis assignment, where they ask students to consider the visual elements, purpose, and audience of a zine in the GSU collections.
Free webinar on designing zine workshops
On Wednesday May 20th there’ll be a free workshop from two University of Washington MLIS Capstone students who have spent the last several months researching, planning, and facilitating zine workshops. Willow Maloney and fran wood will share their expertise in the webinar Cut, Paste, Create: Designing Memorable Zine Workshops. [Updated to add: the recording of the webinar is now available.]
“This webinar will also include access to a [Zine Workshop Toolkit], which contains information about successful facilitation and material considerations, as well as zine templates, examples, and links to events around Washington State. Participants are encouraged to bring their questions and share their own experiences with zine making or workshop facilitation.”
Special issue of academic zines
Volume 4, number 1 of Unbound: A Journal of Digital Scholarship is dedicated to zines, or, more precisely, made out of zines. Titled “Academizines!” and edited by Spencer D. C. Keralis and Zach Frazier, this special issue features contributors from across disciplines sharing their research and creative scholarship in zine form.
The whole issue is great, but these zines within the issue might be of special interest to zine librarians:
- Creative Zinergy: Student-led Zine Workshops and Research in an Academic Library / Jillian Sandy
- ZC/ZL: Imagining Relationships Between Zine Creators and Zine Librarians / Al Cassada
- Shared Authority: Zine Union Catalog Capstone Issue / Jenna Freedman, Lauren Kehoe
- Finding Zines in South and Southeast Asia / Zoë McLaughlin
- Heresy in the Library: Planting a Paradigm / jean amaral
- Caring for Digital Files / Sarah Glover
- Audre Lorde in the Hunter College Libraries / Dorian Onifer
Zine donations for Zine Pavilion 2026
The Zine Pavilion will be back June 26-29, 2026, as a part of the American Library Association conference in Chicago! We’re looking for zine donations to show conference attendees/library workers what zines are all about. A wide range of topics is welcome—the only restriction is no hate speech.
At the end of the conference, the donated zines will be raffled off to several libraries so they can start or grow their own zine collections! Please email zinepavilion@gmail.com with any questions.
Student zine about zine libraries
I loved reading through Zine Libraries, a new zine from Pratt MLIS students Jackson Galati, Marie Cantor, and Ava Lawler. Created as the final project for one of their classes, the zine includes tips and best practices for cataloging and info about some zine libraries and archives in New York City. It’s available to print out for free!
Zine Themed Postcards!
The Zine Pavilion organizers recently commissioned five zinesters to design postcards celebrating zines and the Zine Pavilion. Our artists, Pamela Acosta, Charlotte Fleming, Elliott Junkyard, Jay McQuirns, and Cypress Wilde, were all exhibitors at the 2025 Zine Pavilion. We’re so excited with what they came up with!!
You can purchase a set of five postcards, including shipping & handling, for $15 per set. All proceeds will go towards funding the BIPOC Travel Grant for the next in-person Zine Librarians UnConference.
Zine Archives Montreal 2025
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:
- On Our Terms – categories, metadata and description for zine collections;
- On Our Shelves – challenges around physical shelving and organizing zines of varied shapes, sizes and formats;
- On The Take – a look at acquisition policies and strategies;
- On Loan – challenges posed by managing loans and zine lending libraries;
- On The Platform – making zines available online while respecting copyrights, and without letting AI models ingest them.
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.
ZLuC 2025 registration open
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.
Minizine about the zine community
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:
- swap zines freely and often
- respect your zine elders
- nurture baby zinesters in any way you can
- respect the long arm of the stapler
- office copiers are a way to reclaim your energy
Download the one-page zine for printing at the Commonplace Zines substack.
Call for zines at ARCHIVES*RECORDS 2025
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.
ZLuC 2025 call for proposals
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.
International Zine Month 2025
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!).
Zine Pavilion 2025 collaborative zine
Big 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.
ASL signs for zine-related words
Over 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!





