Posts Tagged ‘zines’

  1. The Zine Fair: A Librarian’s Guide to Independent Press

    October 21, 2012 by lindsay

    Canzine is a large zine fair put on every year by Broken Pencil magazine. This Sunday marks the 17th Canzine in Toronto and the seventh Canzine I have co-programmed.

    In order for librarians to get a first-hand view of what is happening in alternative media and what their users are creating local zine fairs, independent book fairs and comic festivals are great opportunities.

    Tomorrow’s Canzine will feature over 170 zine makers and small presses selling their literary and artistic works. Makers come from across Ontario and up from the States to sell their wares and meet other creators.

    Two recent articles on zines, collecting written ephemera and Canzine were in Metro and Xtra.

    Other upcoming zine and small press fairs include Expozine (November 17 & 18, Montreal), Canzine West (November 17, Vancouver), Buffalo Small Press Book Fair (March, Buffalo) and the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (May, Toronto).


  2. Zines an Emerging Trend in Librarianship

    July 13, 2012 by lindsay

    photo courtesy of OCADU's Learning Zone

    My dream job is to be a zine librarian.

    My original dream job was to be a journalist who wrote about zines. That came true in 2006 when I got the job editing Broken Pencil magazine. But in 2009 — after writing about film for various magazines for years (that was another dream job) — I decided that journalism just wasn’t fulfilling me anymore. I had already achieved all my goals in that field, and I could no longer think of anything to strive for. Then it hit me: I wanted to be a librarian.

    Because I had been working with the Toronto Reference Library on its zine collection (which was started in part by Broken Pencil), and because I had given a number of talks to high school and post secondary students about zines, I realized that teaching people about zines (and the many great things that come along with zines such as social justice, political awareness, literacy and self esteem) was what I wanted to be doing.

    For the uninitiated, zines (pronounced zeens) are independent publications made by individuals or collectives to share their views. There are no rules around making zines, so they can take any form imaginable and can be on any subject. The variety and unstructured nature of zines makes them both useful to libraries (in part because they document local communities in a way no other medium does), but it also makes them difficult to catalogue.

    In 2010 I started studying at the University of Toronto’s iSchool and am now a recent MI (LIS) graduate in Toronto looking for a job. While in “library school” I focused on zines as much as possible, creating a zine collection at a student-run library on campus, helping the Ontario College of Art and Design University (OCADU) to choose online cataloguing software to make its collection searchable, starting a book club at OCADU that integrated zines into the reading choices, and giving talks at libraries, schools and conferences about how zines can be used as literacy and teaching tools. So I was happy to see Kevin Coleman over at Hack Library School estimating that zines are an emerging career in librarianship. In his piece, Coleman articulates what Broken Pencil and zine makers everywhere have been advocating for years: that we must not forget the innovation that still occurs in print during this digital revolution.

    Next week I am speaking to a Readers’ Advisory class about zines and their potential uses in public libraries. In addition to talking about what a zine is, how to find them and how to start a zine collection in a library, I will be discussing how zines can be used not only to educate but to empower readers to create. A zine collection in a library can serve as a launching pad for programming for teens and young adults such as zine writing workshops, zine reading and making clubs, public zine readings and more.

    I realize that I’m not about to land a job entitled “zine librarian” anytime soon (or maybe ever), but I hope that in whatever library I end up, I will have the opportunity to pitch and develop a zine library and create programming to attract and engage new patrons.

    P.S. Celebrate Zine Library Day on July 21st!

    Some Resources for Zine Librarians:

    ALA’s Zines in Libraries panel (which includes a zine on building a zine collection)

    Zine Librarian Yahoo! Group

    Zine Libraries Interest Group

    Bartel, J. (2004). From A to Zine: Building a Winning Zine Collection in your Library. Chicago: American Library Association.

    Zine Librarian Zine

    Zine Librarian Group on We Make Zines (a social media space for zine makers)


  3. The Will Eisner Graphic Novel Prize for Libraries

    June 13, 2012 by lindsay

    Earlier this week The Will & Ann Eisner Family Foundation announced the launch of a new prize for libraries that will see over 100 graphic novels donated to three libraries each year. The Will Eisner Graphic Novel Prize for Libraries will give each winning library a collection of graphic novels and additional prizes to help promote graphic novels. Libraries can register to win during the American Library Association (ALA) Conference in Anaheim, California which runs from June 21 to 26. The names of the winning libraries will be announced at 4pm on Sunday, June 24th on the Graphic Novel Stage in the convention hall.

    The prize — named after the late cartoonist best known for creating The Spirit and often noted as coining the term graphic novel —  will include the 2012 Will Eisner Comics Industry Award nominated graphic novels, the entire Will Eisner Library of books, a $2,000 voucher for the purchase of additional graphic novels, and an additional $1,000 stipend for the library to hold a graphic novel or comic related event. The total value for each prize is approximately $4,000.

    Last month the ALA announced it would be hosting zine-related content at the conference and inviting zine-makers to participate in the Zine Pavilion, which includes an exhibit of donated zines (that will be raffled off to a library at the end of the conference) and tables for zinesters to sell their wares during the exhibit. There will also be a zine reading on Sunday June 21, from 9am until 12pm.