A week in the life of a zine librarian
The Zine-O-Sphere #007: On teaching Gen Z, making U2 fanzines, and finding my way after the Library of Congress rejected my sorry ass
This past week has been a zine dream of epic proportions. In my otherwise very normal university library job, I’ve had the distinct pleasure of spending this semester working primarily with zines.
Whenever I tell people I’m a zine librarian, they give me one of the following reactions:
They ask me what the heck zines are.
They know what zines are and fawn over the fact I get to work with them for a living.
I am extraordinarily lucky to get to do this, but it wasn’t always the plan.
Three years ago, I moved to New York with my partner after the illustrious Library of Congress told me to go fuck myself.
See, I’d spent a year-and-a-half of my grad school days dedicating my waking hours to working for the federal government. I was so convinced of that job coming to tap me on the shoulder and say “Hey, babe. It’s you. We want you.” Instead, I was ruthlessly rejected and moved my entire life to New York in order to lick my wounds in the privacy of a Northern Manhattan apartment.
In retrospect, I think the universe did me a favor. Politics aside, getting that Library of Congress job would have been great, but it also would have led me down a path I’ve since decided isn’t for me.
Back then, I was a chronic overachiever, desperate for structure, accomplishment, and accolades. I worked myself ragged every single day. I worked three jobs, all while being a full time grad student. I completed two internships and made dozens of connections with librarians all over North Carolina. I was even chosen to give the graduation speech for the entire department.
My grad speech in library school was an interesting omen of things to come. I wrote about feeling like a trapeze artist, stuck between the poles. I tried my best to sound hopeful that I might “find myself” in the midst of post-grad school chaos. Even at the time, it was overly-optimistic. Still, many of my fellow students and professors told me how sure they were I would find a great job.
On the outside, I appeared put together and excited for the future. Inside, I was floundering.
When I arrived in the city, I stayed in the dark apartment for a month straight. While New Yorkers enjoyed the June weather, I stayed inside, got high, ordered take-out for every meal, and watched the entirety of Friends. (I was not well.)
After a series of odd part-time jobs, I finally found myself interviewing for the job I currently hold. By some miracle, they liked me enough to hire me. Now, I have entire job devoted to first-year student library outreach. It takes up a fair bit of my work time in the Fall. I orient some 1,000+ first-year students to the library—our services, our collections, and our fabulous staff. It’s a good job but also stressful.
Thankfully, I spend the Spring semester recuperating from the intensity that is my life from July-December. Spring/Summer really is zine time. A lot of the classes I get to teach in the Spring are zine classes. Many Zine Fairs and Festivals happen in the Spring. We do most of our buying and acquisitions in the Spring.
In short, Spring is for ZINES.
After several years of personal chaos and upheaval, I’m thankful I moved to New York and found my own way without the aid of a prestigious cultural institution or education. My life really has become DIY in a sense, and I am finding I prefer it that way.
In the spirit of that ethos, I thought it might be fun to write a little newsletter about what a week in the life of a zine librarian can look like…
On Monday, I finished a few zine templates and created a meta zine about how to make a half-sized zine on Canva. It’s linked here for those of you who were asking for it. If you want to use any of the templates linked in this zine, please just make sure you “make a copy” of it in the File Settings before you start editing :D
I also spent most of this week learning about new formats in preparation for a zine-making class. Before this semester, I’d never made an accordion style zine or a quarter sized zine. I’d only ever made two half-sized letter zines. My go-to zine is always and forever a minizine, but it was a nice change of pace to learn about some other sizes and how best to fit a project/idea to the zine type.
For example, I’ve always wanted to make a full-blown Gilmore Girls fanzine but never felt like a minizine would be enough space with which to explore the subject. So, I decided to give a quarter-size zine a try. I am really pleased with the sizing and how easy it is to alter the design to make something interesting. (Note: when making one of these zines digitally, the pagination can be kind of nightmarish if you’ve never worked with it before. I made myself a template to better understand which pages go where. It’s also linked in the how-to zine above, if you’re interested.)
Finally, I took it upon myself to make a lesser-known and utilized zine type as an experiment. This past week, I was really into U2’s Pop (1997) and made my love known here on Substack. After a rousing conversation about U2 with Henry Beguiristain, Andy’s Weird Ohio, Kevin Alexander, and Miquela Davis, I decided to take this criminally underrated U2 album and make a fanzine to honor its genius.
Here it is in all its kaleidoscopic glory.
I utilized original album art images from the CD booklet, as well as the infamous PopMart tour aesthetics. I also featured several quotes about the album from Bono, The Edge, and a variety of music reviewers. Finally, I was able to design a full poster on the back side of the zine for those of us who long for the fold-out posters from magazines of yesteryear (Tiger Beat, I miss you.)
One thing I realized as I was making this is just how well U2 seems to understand album aesthetics. Yes, by the time they made Pop, they had an entire team behind them to make something great, but here’s the thing. I own several physical media copies of their various albums, and every single one of them just hits. I really wish I knew all this when I wrote my Liner Notes essay back in 2023. I would have gladly included them as one of my shining examples.
Overall, I’m really quite excited by the opportunity to create more types of zines. My next goal is to make a a CD booklet-type zine and J-Card zine (which my good friend Josh Datko already does with his tape zines. If you all are so inclined, check out bitpunk.fm). These formats are so intriguing to me, and I think it could be cool to make some music fanzines utilizing them.
On Tuesday, I taught a class where students were tasked with creating analog zines from scratch using found images, stamps, and their own imaginations. I brought along all of our Zine Library supplies, as well as magazines and newspapers from my personal collection of ephemera.
It went well, and I was once again impressed by the level of ingenuity and creativity Gen Z possesses. When given the right tools, resources, and information, they can craft some really incredible stuff. (To my surprise, one of them even incorporated one of my American Girl catalogs into their zine!)
On Thursday, I helped a student figure out how to photocopy their collaged minizine original. I thought it would be simple—a eight pager easily unfolded and photocopied. However, this student’s zine was twelve pages…stapled together. “All okay!” I told them when they gave me the familiar, embarrassed apology face.
It gave us a fun little puzzle to solve together. After much trial and error, we managed to figure out how they could create multiple color copies. We ended up having a blast, standing over the photocopier and laughing about how unbelievable it is my staff printing money allotment is somehow well over $1,000.
While we worked together—copying, scanning, cutting, and gluing—we spoke at length about the content of their zine, as well as bonded over our shared distaste for those who care just a little too much about student flyer policy. While I won’t go into the specifics of their zine for privacy purposes, I will say I was impressed by their use of color, composition, and style, especially for a first time zine-maker.
Every time I work Gen Z in this way, I feel a little bit better about the state of the world. Despite what our elder generations may think, Gen Z is learning the ropes of what it means to be an adult in a crumbling society, even if they’re taking a bit longer to get there. They’ve grown up in an era where the norms established by decades of civility have been ripped out of the big book and thrown into the street to be run over and endlessly pissed on by dogs. Gen Z is coming of age in an era unlike any other.
This all rises to the surface of my brain any time a Gen Z’er comes up to me and asks me how I discovered zines and librarianship. I tell them the story of my first zine and the class that changed my life. I tell them I was in college during the first Trump term and the start of the Covid-19 Pandemic, which seems to bond us in ways I’ve only just begun to understand. I tell them about my first real job interview after grad school where I serendipitously met one of the zine librarians I cited in a final paper on zine pedagogy. She’s now my coworker and a good friend :)
I tell them all this with the hope our paths crossing will inevitably lead them down the path of zine-making and creativity. Regardless of what they do in their lives for income, zines are one of the purest forms of expression. The spark in their eyes gives me immense hope. By teaching them about zines, I hope I impart even half of the wisdom that’s been given to me over the last decade.
On Wednesday, I had the pleasure of hosting one of my favorite zinesters, creators, poets, and alt comedians, Brooke Finegold, at the zine library. She dropped of her latest photo zine featuring stunning portraits of lesbian hands. We then spent an hour-and-a-half pouring over the zine library historical collection, including original copies of The Furies from 1972 and issues of NYQ and Bust Magazine.
I love having zinesters from outside the campus community join us in the zine library. Having met so many incredible zinesters in person, on Etsy, and here on Substack, I want to do more of this work now that the Zine Library is well-stocked and booming amongst the students and faculty. Having the zinester community involved in our archival work is essential to the success of a fledgling library like ours.
Here’s hoping we’ll be able to host zinesters in the future (and maybe our very own zine fair)!
‘Til Next Time!
Hi zine friends! If anyone has any resources, thoughts, or zines to share with me, please leave ‘em in the comments below. I would love to hear from you :)
Happy Zine Making!
(P.S. Party Girl is the reason I’m a librarian. Not really, but it validates me in my music-obsessed, young, radical librarian who hates Melville Dewey ways.)
All hail the U2 Pop zine. It’s a beauty.
Love everything about this! Party Girl, U2, your insight to Gen Z. Great stuff!