Zines!: Zine Collections

One of the largest existing collections of these personal/political self-publications in academia. Barnard's zines are created by women and non-binary people, with a collection emphasis on zines by women of color and a newer effort to acquire more zines by trans women. 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.

The Bingham Center's collection of zines created by women, girls, and women-identified people began when Sarah Dyer gave her collection of over 1,000 zines in the year 2000. Since Dyer’s initial donation, many more authors and collectors have helped expand the collection to over 6,000 zines, with a majority dating from 1990-2005.

MSU Libraries’ Zine Collection brings together a diverse range of sub- and counter-cultural self-publications in printed form. The collection is strong in early British punk, with fanzines from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s. The collection is also strong in English-language punk, hardcore and other alternative music fanzines generally, with American titles up to the present day.

The scope of this collection mirrors that of the Center's overall collection development policy by focusing on zines written and published by individuals of color or whose topics focus on racial and ethnic culture and history, civil rights, race relations, and related topics.

The zine collection covers topics such as feminism, LGBTQ+ issues, herbalism, health and self-care, and New Orleans subcultures, among others.

Special Collections at the University of Iowa is making a concerted effort to collect zines in all formats in order to preserve these materials and make them accessible to wider popular and research audiences.

The Washington, D.C. Punk and Indie Fanzine collection (DCPIFC) seeks to document the variety of publications that were created by fans of and participants in the punk and indie music scenes that have thrived in the Washington, D.C.-area since the late 1970s. The collection includes primarily paper fanzines, but it also includes born digital fanzines and digitized files of some paper fanzine materials.

The collection contains approximately 700 zines that were acquired from multiple sources and donors since the 1990s. Self-published by individuals or produced by small groups, the zines represent a wide range of genres including political, personal, DIY, and art zines among others.