♥ 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 a wide range of topics, broadly addressing gender, feminisms, identities, political activism, and popular culture. Frequent topics include, for example, teenage girlhoods, punk cultures, COVID-19, riot grrrl, LGBTQIA experiences, BIPOC identities, travel, 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. ♥
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.
There are two zine collections: circulating stacks and special collections. We try to collect two copies of each zine, the second copy living in the open stacks library on the 2nd floor of the Milstein Center. It's open to the public -- you come in, pull a zine from the shelve, and read to your heart's content!
If we only have one copy, it lives in the special collections -- you'll have to make an appointment with our archives staff via email. Let them know the titles and call numbers of your requested zines in your email, and they'll schedule a time for you to come in!
If you can't come in, zine library staff also takes scan requests for zines in either of these collections! Expect to receive your requests in around a week's time. We ask all of our researchers to utilize these scans for personal research only, re-producing them or publishing excerpts online with explicit permission from the creator.
