Locating the Disconnected: Zines in Academic Libraries www.barnard.edu/library/zines/talks/nwsa.ppt National Women's Studies Association Annual Conference 2006 Jenna Freedman Coordinator of Reference Services and Zine Librarian Barnard College Definitions of disconnected not plugged in or connected to a power source; "the iron is disconnected" confused: lacking orderly continuity; "a confused set of instructions"; "a confused dream about the end of the world"; "disconnected fragments of a story"; "scattered thoughts" wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

what is a zine? Rhymes with spleen Name derives from magazine or fanzine Self-published Small, self-distributed print run Motivated by desire to express oneself Outside the mainstream Low budget Self-published means answers to no one. Can be untraceable. Motivation not for money or fame. You can always tell a zine written for some other reason, most typically schoolzines. Outside the mainstream both creator and content. Read quotes from Women and the Pamphlet Culture of Revolutionary England, 1640-1660 Marcus Nevitt Ashgate Publishing 2006: …pamphlets, and pamphlet culture more generally, have frequently been located amongst the most inclusive or democratic aspects of early modern English society. Milton's vision of a freeborn English people was famously based upon an emancipated readership, citizens whose inalienable rights were best expressed through the ability to read pamphlets freed from the tyranny of pre-publication licensing. p. 1 Pamphlets have thus been placed centrally in the vanguard of a cultural and textual egalitarianism. P. 4

what is a zine, part 2 Form Content Creators Form Physical photocopied booklet, mini to oversize Cut and paste, collage Art: printmaking, range of production values Content Genre types: 24 hour zine, art zine, comix, comp(ilation) zine, cookzine, fanzine, lit(erary) zine, mamazine, (per)sonal zine, political zine, split zine Here's a rundown of one personal zine I pulled off the shelf at random. Rainbow Flavoured Angst, #1, a 20 page 4.25" x 5.5" zine by Hanh Nguyen includes a magic markered cover cartoon about racism, 2 pages of introduction, an essay on identity, a poem and essays about the war in Vietnam, a poem about a death penalty victim, husband getting advice from the author's aunt, a how to on writing a "letter to authority," a piece about a classmate's ignorance, guest pieces—on citizenship and a poem, a cartoon about American hypocrisy, a tribute to Matthew Shepard, some political quotes, and what's known in the trade as an outro. You also get the author's first name (her last name is included in an essay, so your discovery of it is incidental), e-mail and postal addresses, the cost of the zine ($1 or two stamps or a zine trade). No date or subscription information. The content is variably handwritten and word processed. There are drawings, photos, and clipart throughout the zine. The back has a picture of the Simpsons, a quote from the Boondocks, and what look like two photocopied stickers. Drawings, essays, journal entries, love/hate lists, papers, reviews Themes: activism, body image, cooking, crushes, gender, love, music, privilege, school, sexuality, work They love Cunt : a declaration of independence / Inga Muscio and Gender trouble : feminism and the subversion of identity / Judith Butler creators—marginalized voices not normally represented in libraries Young Radical Bad spelling/grammar tie all of this to the power and resistance theme of the conference by discussing how zines allow their authors to create their own media, bypassing the dominant culture of publishing. Literacy = writing, not just reading.

riot grrrl & other research Primary source material Third Wave feminism Riot Grrrl Single events (e.g. 9/11, RNC 2004) Popular culture The other main point I want to convey is how important it is to represent these marginalized voices in our libraries and our scholarship. 3rd wave feminism These very same women have, elsewhere, been presented as the mothers of modern feminism. In a trailblazing account of Quaker women pamphleteers, Phyllis Mack contends that 'we can trace a direct line from the earliest Quaker women leaders to the nineteenth-century movements of abolition and women's suffrage and to twentieth-century feminism and peace activism. P. 5

libraries' role in zinedom Including un/underrepresented voices Preserving a cultural movement Adding legitimacy Doing so not only extends their reach but also provides legitimacy to this form of feminist knowledge production by including them in the formalized record of human knowledge and communication. "Collecting materials not only about activism but by activists is one of the hallmarks of the Labadie.     "The Labadie Collection, now part of the University of Michigan's Special Collections Library, is recognized today as one of the world's most comprehensive collections of materials documenting the history of anarchism and other radical movements. It is a valuable repository of materials used by a wide range of people, from noted scholars who travel there to do research to graduate and undergraduate students at the university and nearby colleges who use its holdings of current and noncurrent periodicals to study radical movements of the present and past. It is part of my job and my passion to ensure that tradition continues." 36 "The fact that we must be able to hypothesize about the needs of future researchers is a well-established part of the appraisal process. In so doing, we have the opportunity to unlock secrets. We can heed the call to document the ways in which people are formed in our society as well as the ways those people have shaped our values as a society." 37 "If we, as keepers of history, collect and protect only what is appealing, socially acceptable, or politically correct, we are hardly doing our jobs." 37 In his article "Mind Over Matter," Terry Cook reminds us that: '... In any appraisal model, it is thus important to remember the people who slip through the cracks of society. in western countries, for example, the democratic consensus is often a white, male, capitalist one, and marginalized groups not forming part of that consensus or empowered by it are reflected poorly (if at all) in the programmes of public institutions. The voice of such marginalized groups may only be heard (and thus documented)--aside from chance survival of scattered private papers--through their interaction with such institutions and hence the archivist must listen carefully to make sure these voices are heard.' (Terry Cook, "Mind Over Matter: Towards a New Theory of Archival Appraisal," The Archival Imagination: Essays in Honour of Hugh A. Taylor, ed. Barbara L. Craig (Ottawa: Association of Canadian Archivists, 1992). )p. 43-44 "generations from now, people will acknowledge the work we have done and study the materials we had the foresight to preserve from our own time. The better we document our society's transformations, the better we will be able to learn from those transformations." 45 Julie Herrada. "Letters to the Unabomber: a Case Study and Some Reflections." Archival Matters. v28, n1, 2003-04: pp.35-46

some resources Barnard Zine Collection Zine History Home http://www.barnard.edu/library/zines Links http://www.barnard.edu/library/zines/links.htm Comparison with blogs http://www.barnard.columbia.edu/library/zines/zinesnotblo gs.htm Zine History Wright, Fred. “The History and Characteristics of Zines.” The Zine & E-Zine Resource Guide. 1997. http://www.zinebook.com/resource/wright1.html Zineology by Chris Dodge, Street Librarian http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Cafe/7423/zines.html