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FYSB 1422: Art, AIDS, Activism

This guide supports zine making in Alice Reagan's First Year Seminar, taught in Fall, 2020.

Barnard Zine Library

Welcome to the Barnard Zine Library!

The Barnard Zine Library is part of the Barnard Library and Academic Information Services (BLAIS) in the Milstein Center for Teaching and Learning at Barnard College, Columbia University. The zines are described in the library catalog we share with Columbia University Libraries (CUL), CLIO.

Barnard's zines are created by women and transfeminine people, with collection emphases on zines by BIPOC women and transfeminine people and transwomen of all races and ethnicities. We collect zines on feminism and femme identity by people of all genders. The zines are personal and political publications on activism, anarchism, body image, gender, parenting, queer community, riot grrrl, sexual assault, trans feminisms, and other topics.

There are two zine collections: circulating stacks and special collections.

Circulating zines are located on the 2nd floor of the Milstein Center and can be borrowed by Barnard and Columbia students and members of the BorrowDirect and MaRLI networks and are also available via interlibrary loan. Barnumbia loans are semester long and renewable 99 times.


In Pandemic Times

We have a list of Barnard Zine Library zines with links to pdfs or other digital manifestations of the zines' content, and here is information about zine access to remote users.

You can request stacks zines scans via Scan & Deliver and Special Collections scans by emailing zines@barnard.edu. We are inundated with scan requests, so allow time for scans to be made.

Try digital zine libraries like the Queer Zine Archive Project (QZAP), Sherwood Forest Virtual Zine Library, and Papercut Virtual Zine Library.

Zines Are

What is a zine?

informative, colloquial, creative, expressive. controversial, telling, knowledge-tools, storytelling, self-expression, materiality, mixed media, collective, though-provoking, direct, collaborative, unique, accessible, ephemeral, vulnerable

Why Make Zines?

The answer to that question may change over time and by genre.