I began making zines unwittingly. In college, a few friends and I founded a publication as an outlet for local, in-depth coverage. We secured funding from a national organization to cover printing costs.
At a conference for publications the organization funded, we realized how different ours was from the others. For one, we printed on black-and-white newsprint instead of slick, full-color pages. I remember the editor of another publication commenting, “You guys are more like a zine.” As if our publication hadn’t been polished enough to remove all reminders of the hands that made it. It was much later that I realized our differences went beyond the material. Our differences reflected our “ethos of collaboration, self-determination and resistance.”
In my last post, I wrote about epistemic justice as a response to epistemicide, or the “the devaluing, silencing, killing, or annihilation of knowledge.” Dr. Beth Patin sees local community archives as a means of correcting epistemic injustice. One way to develop community archives is through zine-making.
Librarians are no strangers to zines. For example, ALSC bloggers have written about zines as means of supporting freedom of expression and addressing comics challenges through a community zine project. And my local library system regularly hosts zine-making events for teens.
In my December 2024 post, I wrote about hacking books to grow diverse collections and reminisced on cutting up old magazines in my childhood. I said, “There was something liberatory about it, especially when I used the clippings to create something new.”
When I was a first grade teacher, donations of old magazines made it possible for me to provide my students with opportunities like the ones I had as a child. But—for some reason—I had never thought of directing those opportunities toward zine-making.
Now that I am in a role outside of the classroom, I am full of ideas and regrets. But also full of excitement to engage in zine-making with the children I serve in my current role.
How is zine-making a part of your library’s programming for children—or could it be? Drop a line in the comments or at ktaksier@ufl.edu.
This blog post relates to ALSC Core Competency III: Programming Skills.
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I love how you connected zines with epistemic justice—it reframes them from being just creative expressions to tools of resistance and preservation of marginalized voices. It makes me wonder how libraries can better catalog or circulate zines without compromising their grassroots nature.