Have you zine our new collection? Well, over in the Archives & Special Collections we haven’t zine better days! We have recently received a brand new collection of ZINES (in case you haven’t guessed) due to a generous donation by the Zine Pavilion at the American Library Association Annual Conference last June! As of now, our zine-pool contains around 175 zines covering a wide variety of topics such as politics, national issues, social and environmental justice, queer identities, trans experiences, feminism, race, and mental health, just to name a few.
For those of you who don’t know, “zine” is short for “magazine” or “fanzine.” Zines are most commonly inexpensive, small-circulation self-published works (usually the product of a single person or a small group) intended to spread information, appreciation, art, activism, social justice, etc. for means of awareness rather than profit. They are often small, created with a photocopier, and stitched together creatively to construct a unique work of art, ready to be shared! Barnard Zine Library defines zines as “self-publications, motivated by a desire for self-expression, not for profit.”
If you’re interested in analy-zine our growing collection, we have an upcoming Behind the Archives Door event, “Zines and More!” taking place on Thursday October 5th, from 4:00-5:00pm in the Archives & Special Collections Seminar room on the second floor of Collins Library. Hosted by Katy Curtis, our Humanities Librarian and Zine expert extraordinaire, this event will be showcasing our ama-zine collection and the ways in which zines can be used for teaching and learning!
Try squee-zine it into your busy schedules, and don’t hesitate mobili-zine on over to our open hours to check out any of our other surpri-zine materials! They’re worth utili-zine!
The Archives & Special Collections is open on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays from 12:00-3:00 p.m. or by appointment.
By Monica Patterson