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.
Category Archives: collecting
Unethical: Alfonso Vijil from Libros Latinos
I’m sharing this post by Charissa (Wasted Ink Distro) from Facebook to Latine folks selling zines and zine librarians and others buying zines. Zine librarians might want to avoid buying items from collectors anyway, but this one in particular…
Please be on the lookout for Alfonso Vijil from Libros Latinos at your zine fests. We’ve recently learned he’s been buying zines, specifically from BIPOC creators and then turns around and sells them for 3-5x the original cost to libraries without telling the zine maker or paying them the profit. He was at LA Zine Fest buying zines and was seen as recently as this past weekend at an event buying zines.
Zines in the Diverse Voices in Health & Medicine Collections
In 2022, the Network of the National Library of Medicine (NNLM) Region 5 created a series of collection development toolkits as part of their Diverse Voices in Health & Medicine Collections project. One of those toolkits is the Zine Collection for Adults (pdf), featuring a bibliography of zines focused on a variety of health topics, including addiction and recovery, death and dying, the healthcare system, mental health, nutrition and fitness, and sexual and reproductive health.
If you’re looking for zines about health and medicine, this list could be a good place to start!
New circulating zine collection at Kansas City Public Library
A blog post titled Representing More Voices and Connecting Patrons With a Second Zine Collection (Coming Soon) shares info about zines at the Kansas City Public Library. While they currently have a non-circulating collection in the Missouri Valley Special Collections which were collected by donations, the new circulating collection will be purchased from the creator. Anyone in the KCPL area can suggest a purchase just as they would for books by local authors.
New book: “Zines in Libraries”
A new book on zines in libraries, edited by Lauren DeVoe and Sara Duff, was published this month by ALA Editions. “Zines in Libraries: Selecting, Purchasing, and Processing” includes chapters on circulation, preservation, acquisitions, collection development, and more, including information specifically about zines in school libraries and the Zine Union Catalog. Some chapters have open access copies available; we’re collecting links to institutional repositories.
Zine Shops Map
Alex (@fanzines on Twitter) is maintaining a Google map of physical shops that sell zines around the world.
“How Zines Can Help You Document Social Justice Movements”
Cristina Favretto, Head of Special Collections at the University of Miami Libraries, gave a great presentation on the history of zines on October 21: “All You Need is Paper and Passion: How Zines Can Help You Document Social Justice Movements.” The presentation also had suggestions for building relevant and responsive zine collections.
The session recording and the slides are now available.
Contemporary Collecting: DIY Publishing webinar
The Bibliographical Society of America hosted a webinar on July 28 about DIY Publishing. Miarosa Ciallella, a zinester and library worker, talks about zines as activism and zines as a way to resist technocracy. Ciallella talks about how we know that social media is oppressive and how zines are “micro-archives that reflect and reject dominant narratives of historical moments.” Ciallella argues that we should start mentally investing in DIY print culture as a way to document history. (The other half of the presentation, about real estate flyers from Real Estate Trailblazers, is also interesting, though not as relevant to this site!)
Find the full description of this presentation at: memberplanet.com/events/bsa/contemp-collecting-diy and the recording at youtube.com/watch?v=BqxLE0zh5Xo.
Quaranzines in library collections
Zine librarian and librarian Gina Murrell wrote a story for Library Journal called Libraries Collect COVID-19 Stories in Quaranzines on June 1st. She talks about how zines have allowed creators to process the difficult thoughts and emotions surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. Find the article at libraryjournal.com/?detailStory=Libraries-Collect-COVID-19-Stories-Quaranzines.
Zine Invoice Form
You can adapt this form for your institution. I bring it to zinefests and the like, fill out titles and prices of zines as I buy them. I then bring the form back to work and trade it for a petty cash reimbursement.
Timberland Regional LIbrary zine invoice
This is the invoice that I created with the assistance of one of our business office staff. (kelsey)
not a zine
I was disappointed that we didn’t get around to discussing this at the collection develpment session at the Zine Librarians (un)Conference: what are the factors that help you determine that a publication is not a zine?
Of course there are zines that meet one or more of the following criteria, but this list is a place to start. Please add yours in the comments.
- has an ISBN or ISSN
- has a masthead
- not self-distributed
- has a third person bio
- not self-published (!)
- motivated by desire for fame or fortune
- makes a distinct profit
- price ends in .95
- has a spine
- has any paid staff
- reads like the author is auditioning for a book deal


