From zine scholar Kiyoshi Murakami in Japan comes a series of posts titled “Zines, Archiving, and Activism—the Horizons Opened up by Their Interlocking Developments” published in the webzine AMeeT (Art Meets Technology). Part 4 of 4, “Grounds and Structures That Librarians and Archivists Have Worked Together to Build,” describes the unique aspects of the Zine Librarians unConference (ZLuC), including the work done to support the BIPOC Travel Grant and the Organizer Toolkit. She goes on to discuss the Zine Librarians Code of Ethics and its creation and promotion. Kiyoshi then describes the International Zine Librarians Unconference in 2020, when people from around the world came together to share their zine libraries and scholarship. Very exciting to see our “autonomous activities” described as “cooperative and creative networking”!!!

Be sure to check out part 1 ( about the tension of DIY publications being collected and processed by institutions), part 2 and part 3 (both about London’s 56a Infoshop) of the series. Thank you to Kiyoshi for beautifully encapsulating the joyous and extraordinary work that’s being done in zine archives & libraries around the world!

If you don’t read Japanese, Kiyoshi suggests using DeepL Translator for a translation.