Excited for the publication of Public Librarians Discuss Zine Collections, a 44-page booklet published by Temporary Services. Created by Marc Fischer and Tim Devin, it features interviews with Tim Devin (Somerville Public Library). Angi Brzycki & Ziba Pérez (Los Angeles Public Library), Alicia Tate (Multnomah Public Library) and Alina Josan (Free Library of Philadelphia).
Your friend Violet Fox (author of this very post) nearly forgot to promote her own webinar on this very website! Please join me, Dez Alaniz, and Dawn Stahura, as well as moderator Sophie Ziegler (also a zinester!) for a free webinar titled Zinesters as Librarians, Librarians as Zinesters. We’ll be talking about how being a librarian influences our zine practices and how being a zinester influences our library practice. If you’re looking for a webinar that’s speaks to your very, very niche interests of zines + libraries, join us for a fun discussion!
Edit to add: the recording of the webinar is now available!
Thanks very much to Library Juice Connections for suggesting and hosting this webinar! They’ve been terrific to work with.
Looking forward to this free webinar, History of Zines (+ Free Speech), presented by Colin Wheeler and Pete Rorabaugh at Kansas State University. It’s on Wednesday September 2nd. The webinar is part of their Experts on DIY Publishing series, which goes through November and culminates in a zine party with attendees having the chance to learn about different aspects of DIY publishing by visiting various stations within a collaborative space in the library. Other webinars in the series include a Remixing the Book panel on September 30th and Teaching with Zines on October 14th.
Zine Scheme for STEM Library Engagement and Outreach, a paper by Denise Amanda Wetzel, Chasz Griego, Sara Kern, and Jacob E Gordon, was presented at the 2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition (the American Society of Engineering Education). The authors share information about zine history, making zines, and use cases both for libraries in general and for engineering students. The appendices include sample one-page zines from the authors’ institutions (Carnegie Mellon University and Pennsylvania State University), featuring info about wayfinding in libraries and pocket guides to resources for specific topics. If you’re looking for ways to use zines in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics, this paper might be a good place to start.
A few panels from a 1-page zine from the Patent and Trademark Resource Center
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.
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:
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!
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.”
There’s a new guest editorial in the March 2025 issue of College & Research Libraries, “The Role of Academic Libraries in the Shifting Landscape of Zines” by Evan Bobrow. Bobrow writes about several topics important in zine librarianship: the fuzzy definitions of zines, what it means to create a printed zine in the age of the Internet and social media, the authority conferred on zines by including them in a library collection, and how seeing zines (especially scrappy, less-polished zines) can inspire people to create their own. The editorial ends with this lovely thought:
“There is a magic to holding a zine in your hands, only to be suddenly struck with inspiration to create. Zine libraries have the opportunity to bring this experience to all who visit, and therein lies their power.”
A nice article from the Carleton College student newspaper, “Special Collections and Art History Department host ‘Library on Legs’ event,” written by Clare O’Connor. The article describes a “Library on Legs” event hosted by Gould Library’s Special Collections and the Department of Art and Art History, along with a library display and a zinemaking workshop from a local artist.
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:
The video is a great way to see what’s happening in the Scottish zine librarian scene!