Last year I reported that the Denver Zine Library and the Papercut Zine Library were on hiatus. Boo! I admit, I cynically thought that was it for both of them, but happily I was mistaken. They both have reopened: Denver, Papercut. Yay!
I got news via Facebook and an email message that the Denver Zine Library will soon close for some period of time beginning next month.
It is with mixed emotions that we are announcing the temporary closure of the Denver Zine Library (DZL) which has been housed at The Other Side Arts on Platte St. for the past few years. There are several factors contributing to this temporary closure that we’d like to share with you. We have often found ourselves struggling to meet the demands of rent expenses, making us recognize that we cannot sustainably maintain our current location. Our core group of board members have also been taking on the role of volunteers, consistently sharing the responsibility of staffing the DZL every weekend so that it can remain open. Unfortunately, we have seen very few visitors, and while we know there is community interest in having a zine library in Denver, we want to make sure those same community members are invested in both visiting/utilizing the DZL as well as telling others about this incredible resource.
A while ago Anastasia Diamond-Ortiz of the Cleveland Public Library wrote on the Zine Librarians Yahoo Group, "Blogs are immediate, zines are deliberate." And here I am blogging an event that happened three weeks ago now. I think I'm missing the point! Therefore, I'm going to wrap up my GLBT ALMS recap now or never! (And theoretically my next zine will be deliberate, rather than hastily thrown together, poorly proofread, and with weak, nonsensical graphics.)
So, following is my report back on the zine libraries discussion and Alana Kumbier & Christa Orth's Archiving from the Ground Up
Kelly Shortandqueer
Chris Wilde
Laura Wynholds
GLBT ALMS
Zines are important in archives for a number of reasons. First of all, they represent an important primary source of information for future historians. They usually come from subcultures that are poorly documented in the larger culture. Furthermore, unlike the traditional print media, they represent an unmediated rendition of people's experiences in a particular place and time distributed to a significant (albeit small) audience. Secondly, in a time when writing communities are increasingly digital ( e.g. blogs, myspace, facebook), the print culture of the zine world is unique in its sociology. People make zines, trade them with others, write letters, and meet other like minded people. The zine genre is almost as well known for its creation of community as it is for its contribution of physical documents.
Within the context of lgbt archives, the theme of building community is an important one. However, the traditional method of cataloging and housing zines (as monographs or serials) does little to preserve the context out of which the documents were created. Despite this, the culture of community still plays an important role and overlaps into archives preserving zines. This panel will present the views of queer zine collecting in academic as well as non-traditional archives and libraries. We will discuss the ways that the diy zine communities overlap into these collections, as well as the ways the larger parent institution shapes the type of community involvement.
