LibGuides: Zine Collection: Finding Zines

Finding Zines
Handouts for Making Zines
Books about Zines and Making Zines
Websites & Blogs

College of Fine Arts and Communication Liaison Librarian, Open Licenses Librarian

Tara Spies Smith

She/Her/Hers

Email Me

Schedule Research Consultation

Contact:

Alkek Library

512-408-3732

Subjects: Anthropology, Art and Design, Family and Consumer Sciences, Fine Arts and Communication

What is a Zine?

A zine - derived from magazine - is an independently- or self-published booklet, often created by a single person. Zines are customarily created by physically cutting and gluing text and images together onto a master flat for photocopying, but it is also common to produce the master by typing and formatting pages on a computer. The end product is usually folded and stapled. Zines can be printed and bound in any manner. Offset printing is a relatively common alternative to photocopying, though there is some controversy among zine writers as to whether professionally printed products may be defined as zines. -- From ZineWiki

Adding Your Zine to the Zine Collection

If you would like to donate your zines to the Zine Collection or have your zine digitized and added to the Artists' Books Collection Online Exhibition, please contact Tara Spies Smith at ts20@txstate.edu

More about Zines - What they are and History

"The early twentieth century was littered with journals and gazettes created by artists to serve as soapboxes for their quirky ideas. Futurist, Dadaist, and Surrealist art provocateurs wrote dissonant poetry, composed asymmetric typography, pasted expressive collages, and printed it all in crudely produced publications. Each movement, in its own way, proffered the Modernist notion that art was a total experience. These art and culture periodicals, or “zines,” were weapons of cultural warfare, attacking convention." - AVANT-GARDE ZINES IDEA N^O41: Magazines as laboratory for artistic experiment from 100 Ideas that Changed Graphic Desig

How do I access the Zines at Alkek?

The Alkek Library Zine Collection is on the 3rd floor by the Graphic Novel Collection.

You can browse the covers of the Zine Collection on the 3rd Floor next to the Graphic Novel Collection.

To access the actual zines take a picture of the zine cover and call number of the zine you want to access and read OR you can write down the title and the call number. Bring either or both of these options to the desk on the Main, 2nd floor and show them the picture or title and call number of the zine(s) you want to see. If someone is available, you will be directed to the Special Collections & Archives reading room to view/read/access the zine(s). If no one is available to show you the Zine(s), the desk staff will show you how to make a request to see the zine at a near future time.

You can also look the title of the zine up in the library catalog and use the link to request to see it in the Special Collections & Archives Reading Room. If you aren't sure how to do that, please go the desk on the 2nd, main floor and ask someone to help you see the zine or make the request to see it.

You can browse a list of zines in the library catalog. From the Library Catalog homepage, choose Location on the left-hand side limiters and click "more" to see all locations and then choose:

Texas State University Artists' Books Collection Digital Exhibit

Texas State University Artists' Books Collection Digital Exhibit
Texas State University Artists' Books Collection Digital Exhibit including Zines from the Alkek Library Zine Collection.