Statement from the ZLuC 2025 Organizers

Hallmarks of the zine librarians communities, as evidenced by the Zine Librarians Code of Ethics, are equity, care, and openness. We strive to make everyone in our communities feel welcome, and perhaps due to the general goodness of people drawn to collecting, describing, providing access to and preserving zines, we have, for the most part, been able to avoid conflict.

The Zine Librarians unConference (ZLuC), held semi-annually since 2009, is an anti-authoritarian space. One of the powers of zines is that they give a voice to marginalized groups to express themselves, organize, and collaborate. Unfortunately, in our current political landscape, ideologies founded on acceptance and support are seen by some as radical propaganda.

As librarians and archivists (degreed or not) and people in activist communities, we are conscious of the need for digital privacy. However, until this year, we have never had reason to lock down our communications networks.

At this year’s ZLuC, held on November 8th and 9th 2025 (US and other time zones), a bad actor attended the unConference under a pseudonym with the intention of “spying” on the presenters and other participants. Organizers became aware of this transgression the day after the unConference (November 10th), when Karlyn Borysenko released a recording she took without our knowledge or consent on her Substack. We were then informed that she livestreamed some (or all) of the event behind a paywall. In addition to being against our own event policies, this behavior violates the Substack community guidelines. She also shared clips and references to her stream on Bluesky, Twitter (X), YouTube, Rumble, and perhaps other platforms as well.

In keeping with the zine community ethos, ZLuC is open to everyone. The only session recorded by organizers was the opening session. It was important to us to create a space where attendees could explore their thoughts in a safe environment and feel heard without fear of being judged or having their words shared later out of context. We are extremely saddened that this bad actor took advantage of the openness of our event to target members of our community.

We are continuing to investigate any other harm this person may have caused, reporting policy violations and requesting removal of these posts across platforms, and discussing precautions to best prevent a situation like this from happening again.

Zine librarians hold a range of minoritized identities: queer, trans, people of color, indigenous, disabled, poor, and/or others. We believe that zine libraries and archives are powerful, but this event is entirely volunteer-run and without substantial economic capital. The fact that this individual chose to target such a small event with this level of vitriol and is receiving support from their audience is emblematic of our current political climate. This is not acceptable to us.  We stand with all attendees who participated in good faith, especially the zine librarian who is (so far) the primary target of the journalist’s mean-spirited social media, newsletter, and video posts.

We know that many of our presenters and attendees will understandably feel violated by this experience. The commentary created by this person is designed to upset, intimidate, and in some cases directly attack our community. However, we should not allow this rhetoric to overshadow the value of our work and the care we show to our community as zinesters and librarians. We are still very proud of this event and the collective knowledge and solidarity we shared.

If you are targeted by this individual (or anyone else), please document it and contact the ZLuC organizing team. We do not recommend interacting directly.

As we reflect on this unConference, we stand by our statement that ZLuC is an inspirational, informative, and fun gathering of people who care deeply about zines, their preservation, and their ability to change lives for the better. We as a community are committed to this unConference and each other, and we refuse to be cowed by hostility. We offer our sincere thanks to all who participated in ZLuC 2025, and we will continue our pursuit of equity and justice.

Sincerely,

The ZLuC 2025 Organizing Team

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A Note About unConference Resources

We are aware that unConference resources such as collective notes and materials shared by presenters were available during the unConference. Out of respect for presenters, the organizers have temporarily removed those resources from this page. We are in the process of communicating with presenters about what information from their sessions they are comfortable with sharing; as we receive their permission, we will restore public access to the information. We thank you for your patience as we prioritize the wishes of our unConference presenters.