Category Archives: programming

Two Open Access Week zine fests

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There’s two separate zine events happening for Open Access Week, celebrated October 19th through the 25th this year.

At Michigan State University, the second Common Knowledge Zine Fest is happening Sunday October 18th. There will be 15+ zine exhibitors focused on research, history, politics, and community knowledge, along with sessions and conversations exploring connections between zines, research, and academia. MSU Libraries is also putting together a special exhibit on 50 years of punk zines.

flyer for the Common Knowledge Zine Fest, featuring an image of a fluorescent pink brain.

And at the University of Colorado at Boulder, the Center for Research Data and Digital Scholarship will be hosting Beyond the Paywall: Academizines and Reclaiming Knowledge Production on Tuesday October 20th. There will be a mini zine fair and zine crafting station, and they’ll talk about the Academizines! Manifesto.

Screenshot of the Beyond the Paywall event RSVP page, with a graphic of brightly colored zine pages.

 

Free webinar on Georgia State University Library’s zine initiatives

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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

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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.”photo of someone looking at zines and a messy table filled with zine making materials.

ASL signs for zine-related words

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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!

Zine library crawl in Boston

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logo for The Greater Boston Zine Library Crawl, featuring swirling illustrations of zine pages and flowers

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:

Description of how the Zine Library Crawl works. Text reads: "This April, you're invited to check out as many zine libraries in the Greater Boston area as you can! Complete your zine passport, available at the circulation desk, for an opportunity to win prizes, including free goodies from the participating libraries, zine making supplies, and physical zines from area zine members."

Zinemaking resources at the Tiny Zine Swap Shop

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Excited to stumble upon the website Tiny Zine Swap Shop, which is designed to help library workers introduce zinemaking to young people. Created by Scottish library worker Fi Johnston, the Tiny Zine Swap Shop has resources focused on the joy of making one-page zines, including a template, workshop, brief histories of zines, inspiration ideas, ideas for curriculum, and more.

See Fi give a presentation about the site at Tiny Zine Swap Shop titled “The Benefits of Zinemaking on Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing.” That presentation was part of a June 2024 “Zine Webinar Morning” sponsored by the Academic and Research Libraries Group Scotland, which includes presentations such as:

  • Penny Robertson discussed City of Glasgow College Library’s successful bid for funding with the Europe Challenge for their project where library staff and co-created zines with students.
  • Bridget McCall outlined the ongoing project at the University of Dundee to create a collaborative guide to small-press and zine creation and discovery.
  • Zines in academic spaces: the Glasgow School of Art Library: Assistant Librarians Charlotte Dunn and Jenna Meek discussed the importance of zines within academic spaces – not only as outputs but as authentic sources that can be used to diversify academic research.
  • Zines Subject Headings project at the GSA Library, using the Homosaurus and the Zine Subject Thesaurus.

The video is a great way to see what’s happening in the Scottish zine librarian scene!

Lesson plan: “Radical Appropriation in Zine Making”

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Missed this chapter when it first came out, but here’s a great lesson plan for undergraduates by librarian Emilee Mathews. She writes, “In this lesson plan, students critically engage the zine’s conceptual underpinnings and material production in order to reflect on their own nascent zine making practice. What meanings are created by appropriating another’s work, particularly that of another zinester, and does the meaning change when the student’s work is accessioned into the same archive in which they found it?”

Check out the open access chapter “Radical Appropriation in Zine Making,” one of the 17 available through ARLIS/NA’s “Fair Use in the Visual Arts: Lesson Plans for Librarians,” published in 2018.

Blog post about the Edinburgh Zine Library

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Here’s a terrific blog post about the Edinburgh Zine Library! “For LGBT History Month, a guest blog post from Abi and Lili from the Edinburgh Zine Library” is a featured story on the Edinburgh Libraries blog. EZL is independent but is hosted by the public library (Central Library), making for a very cool relationship. Read about the inspiration behind the library’s creation and the projects that EZL has made happen during COVID-19 closures.

Environmental zines at the University of Nebraska

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University of Nebraska at Omaha librarians Amy Schindler, Monica Maher, and Claire Du Laney collaborated with instructor Clare Maakestad and students in Introduction to Sociology sections to create zines on environmental topics. Read more about their project, including integration with UNO Libraries Archives and Special Collections, in “New Environmental Zines Combine Creativity and Research.”screenshot of article title including an image of eleven mini zines on environmental topics such as plastic bags and extreme weather

Using Zines in Library Instruction and Outreach interview

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Long time zine librarian Ann Matsushima Chiu talks about her work using zines in library instruction in a new interview with Raymond Pun. Ann discusses her most frequently used workshops, including a Zines 101 session, teaching information literacy concepts, and the “Zine-in-a-Hurry” workshop, where participants collaborate on a zine which is completed in about an hour! Check out the interview at Infobase.

screenshot from interview page featuring a "coloring zine" on a table surrounded with lavender plants and a knitting project

IZLuC2020 Schedule and Registration are now LIVE!

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Please join us October 30-November 2 (start and end dates vary by timezone)! Three days of amazing programming and unconference time for library workers interested in zines and zinesters interested in libraries to hobnob and learn together!
http://zinelibraries.info/wiki/zluc2020/

Click on the individual days for schedules and to register.

This quokka says SEE YOU AT THE UNCONFERENCE!

IZLD2020

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July 21st is International Zine Library Day July 21st is International Zine Library Day! As a way of celebrating, we’ve planned virtual and multimodal events that span the globe and create a way for zine librarians to meet up from around the world. Three programming blocks run from UTC 20:00 to UTC 04:00 with all kinds of events, from workshops to panels to readings (and, of course, more). and if you’re missing strolling past the tables at a zine fair, check out our two tabling sessions, where you can drop in and see what our tabling zinesters and librarians have on showcase. There are also two ways to participate asynchronously if you can’t make it to the live event- you can submit to our cookzine compilation or participate in a snail mail zine swap. Before you join us, please make sure to review our Community Care Expectations. Don’t forget to tag your social media with #IZLD2020. We hope to see you there!

  • IZLD Kickoff: Zine Recipe Zine Share (UTC 20:00)
    (UTC+2) Tue 10:00 pm – Berlin
    (UTC+1) Tue 9:00 pm – Edinburgh
    (UTC-4) Tue 4:00 pm – New York
    (UTC-5) Tue 3:00 pm – Chicago
    (UTC-7) Tue 1:00 pm – Los Angeles
    (UTC+10) Tue 6:00 am – Sydney
  • Panel discussion: Zines and Borderlands with Luisa Martínez (UTC 21:00)
    (UTC+2) Tue 11:00 pm – Berlin
    (UTC+1) Tue 10:00 pm – Edinburgh
    (UTC-4) Tue 5:00 pm – New York
    (UTC-5) Tue 4:00 pm – Chicago
    (UTC-7) Tue 2:00 pm – Los Angeles
    (UTC+10) Tue 7:00 am – Sydney
  • Workshop: Teach With Zines (UTC 21:30)
    (UTC+2) Tue 11:30 pm – Berlin
    (UTC+1) Tue 10:30 pm – Edinburgh
    (UTC-4) Tue 5:30 pm – New York
    (UTC-5) Tue 4:30 pm – Chicago
    (UTC-7) Tue 2:30 pm – Los Angeles
    (UTC+10) Tue 7:30 am – Sydney
  • ~tabling~ (UTC 22:00)
    (UTC+2) Tue 12:00 am – Berlin
    (UTC+1) Tue 11:00 pm – Edinburgh
    (UTC-4) Tue 6:00 pm – New York
    (UTC-5) Tue 5:00 pm – Chicago
    (UTC-7) Tue 3:00 pm – Los Angeles
    (UTC+10) Tue 8:00 am – Sydney
  • Zinester Pet Show and Tell (UTC 23:00)
    (UTC+2) Tue 1:00 am – Berlin
    (UTC+1) Tue 12:00 am – Edinburgh
    (UTC-4) Tue 7:00 pm – New York
    (UTC-5) Tue 6:00 pm – Chicago
    (UTC-7) Tue 4:00 pm – Los Angeles
    (UTC+10) Tue 9:00 am – Sydney
  • Infosession: Zinewiki.com (UTC 23:30)
    (UTC+2) Tue 1:30 am – Berlin
    (UTC+1) Tue 12:30 am – Edinburgh
    (UTC-4) Tue 7:30 pm – New York
    (UTC-5) Tue 6:30 pm – Chicago
    (UTC-7) Tue 4:30 pm – Los Angeles
    (UTC+10) Tue 9:30 am – Sydney
  • Make a One Page Mini Zine Workshop (UTC 00:00) (NOTE: registration requires a code because of bots- enter zines4eva to register)
    (UTC+2) Tue 2:00 am – Berlin
    (UTC+1) Tue 1:00 am – Edinburgh
    (UTC-4) Tue 8:00 pm – New York
    (UTC-5) Tue 7:00 pm – Chicago
    (UTC-7) Tue 5:00 pm – Los Angeles
    (UTC+10) Tue 10:00 am – Sydney
  • Queer Zine Archive Project Tour,
    plus Q&A with co-founder Chris Wilde     (UTC 00:30) (NOTE: registration requires a code because of bots- enter zines4eva to register)
    (UTC+2) Tue 2:30 am – Berlin
    (UTC+1) Tue 1:30 am – Edinburgh
    (UTC-4) Tue 8:30 pm – New York
    (UTC-5) Tue 7:30 pm – Chicago
    (UTC-7) Tue 5:30 pm – Los Angeles
    (UTC+10) Tue 10:30 am – Sydney
  • ~tabling~ (UTC 01:00)
    (UTC+2) Tue 3:00 am – Berlin
    (UTC+1) Tue 2:00 am – Edinburgh
    (UTC-4) Tue 9:00 pm – New York
    (UTC-5) Tue 8:00 pm – Chicago
    (UTC-7) Tue 6:00 pm – Los Angeles
    (UTC+10) Tue 11:00 am – Sydney
  • Panel: Zine Libraries and Zine Librarianship (UTC 02:00)
    (UTC+2) Tue 4:00 am – Berlin
    (UTC+1) Tue 3:00 am – Edinburgh
    (UTC-4) Tue 10:00 pm – New York
    (UTC-5) Tue 9:00 pm – Chicago
    (UTC-7) Tue 7:00 pm – Los Angeles
    (UTC+10) Tue 12:00 pm – Sydney
  • Zine reading: AUS creators (UTC 03:00)
    (UTC+2) Tue 5:00 am – Berlin
    (UTC+1) Tue 4:00 am – Edinburgh
    (UTC-4) Tue 11:00 pm – New York
    (UTC-5) Tue 10:00 pm – Chicago
    (UTC-7) Tue 8:00 pm – Los Angeles
    (UTC+10) Tue 1:00 pm – Sydney
  • Zine library talk with John Stevens, State Library of Victoria, AU (UTC 03:30)(UTC+2) Tue 5:30 am – Berlin
    (UTC+1) Tue 4:30 am – Edinburgh
    (UTC-4) Tue 11:30 pm – New York
    (UTC-5) Tue 10:30 pm – Chicago
    (UTC-7) Tue 8:30 pm – Los Angeles
    (UTC+10) Tue 1:30 pm – Sydney