Zines (pronounced ZEENS) are self-published booklets that typically have a small circulation. Made by hand, they are relatively cheap to make and easy to distribute with widely varying formats and content. Zines can be memoir, political tools, outreach and encouragement to others, they are the voice of marginalized communities, art, and as extensions of do-it-yourself (DIY) culture and ethics; the possibilities are endless.
As social artifacts, zines are valuable perspectives that enrich and inform us personally while providing critical texture and voice to wider cultural, political, and historical issues (and beyond). Zines are often important resources in understanding the entanglement of the personal and political. They can be acts of courage, speak hard truths, ask difficult questions, interrogate social norms, and challenge default answers. Through their physicality, they offer an extended conversation with a wide community, one individual at a time.
The library collects a wide variety of zines that foster intellectual curiosity and discourse. The zine collection at College of the Atlantic is comprised of zines from individual donations, purchases from zine distributors, and purchases from individuals. All zines are reviewed by the library staff, cataloged, organized alphabetically by title, and made available for circulation.
Our zine collection started in the Spring of 2017 as a part of a senior project by Jasmine Bourgeois who studied the performative and socio-political function of zines. Zines can be browsed freely and circulated like other library materials.
Zines in our collection CANNOT be scanned, copied, reprinted, or made digital. (Most) zines are copyrighted materials — if reproduction is required, permissions must be sought from the creator(s). While some zines are explicitly copyright free and encourage reproduction, it is generally best to treat zines like any other published material and assume there is a copyright that prohibits unauthorized reproduction.
Zine Call Numbers and Locating Zines
Thorndike Library materials have a Library of Congress (LC) call number (TP 371.44 .K37 2003). The first set of letters and numbers indicate the book’s main subject (TP 371.44 = Chemical technology, Food Processing and Manufacture), while the section following the decimal point, known as the Cutter number, represents the author's last name (.K37 = Katz), and the final number is the publication date (2003).
Our call number structure is ZINE | Author Cutter | First Letter of Title | Date
Example: Protest Song by Adam Farcus, 2017 = ZINE .F373p 2017
We organize our zines by author or title if no author is identified. Then they are further organized by size: ZINE (18cm and larger), TINY ZINE (11cm-18cm), and MINI ZINE (under 11cm).
Example: Birds of the feather, Jack Oudyn, 2012 is 7.5cm tall, so it is considered MINI = MINI ZINE .O939b 2012
Thorndike Library Zine Collection Policy
The library collects a wide variety of zines that foster intellectual curiosity and discourse. The zine collection at College of the Atlantic is comprised of zines from individual donations, purchases from zine distributors, and purchases from individuals. All zines are reviewed by the library staff, cataloged, organized alphabetically by title, and made available for circulation*.
Donations
If you would like to donate a zine or collection of zines, please contact Catherine Preston-Schreck (cpreston-schreck@coa.edu). . We gladly accept them and review them but cannot guarantee they will be added to the collection. We are particularly interested in zines from individual creators rather than third party donations, and are less likely to include the latter in our collection.
*Zine creators have a right to refusal. If any zine creator would like their work removed from our collection, please email library@coa.edu. From there we can discuss how you would like the material(s) to be deaccessioned.