Archives are materials created by a person, family, or organization, in the conduct of daily life, preserved because of some enduring historical value. An archival repository is a place where people can go to gather and evidence from letters, reports, notes, memos, photographs, and other primary sources. The Barnard Archives are repository of records of the life of Barnard College and broader feminist histories, as well as a space for critical, interdisciplinary inquiry into the past as well as the imagination of possible futures. We collect records documenting college history and the lives of students, alums, faculty, and staff from founding to present day, as well as special collections that document feminist histories. Our work is informed by reparative frameworks, to actively confront histories of exclusion of people with marginalized identities within our collections.
♥ Barnard's zines reflect the Barnard College student population with regard to gender. We have zines by women, nonbinary people, and trans men, with a collection emphasis on zines by women of color and a newer effort to acquire more zines by trans women. We collect zines on feminism and femme identity by people of all genders. The zines are personal and political publications on teenage girlhoods, punk cultures, COVID-19, riot grrrl, feminisms, LGBTQIA experiences, BIPOC identities, popular culture, travel, political activism, comics, physical and mental health, body image, gender nonconformity, discrimination, DIY and crafting, cooking, friendship, and much more. ♥
Our zines are at the lower end of the production level scale and typically cost $10 or less, with most of them in the $1-$5 range.
What is one word/a phrase you associate with zines?
Our "general collection" includes (among other things) all of the books in our stacks, books that you can check out and take home with you. Our general collections also include databases of scholarly material and primary source material. Below are a few books about the prison abolition and the prison industrial complex. There are many more. If you'd like to discuss, let's make a time to chat!
-Liam (ladler@barnard.edu)
Are Prisons Obsolete? by 
Prisons Make Us Safer by 
Captive Genders by 
Normal Life by 