About this guide

Zine Library is an independent guide to zines and small-press publishing — what a zine is, how they are made, folded, printed and distributed, and how libraries make room for objects that resist every standard.

The name is old and generic: a zine library is a real kind of collection, gathered in church basements and college corners and the backs of record shops. This site borrows the name for its subject, not its function. We hold nothing. There is no catalogue here, no membership, no shelf.

What you'll find

Five sections, written in a plain maker's voice: What a Zine Is, Making & Printing, Formats & Binding, Distros & Fairs, and Collecting & Archiving. Practical, warm, unpretentious — the folding, the stapling, the drum and the distro box.

The cover plates

A zine is represented here by a typographic plate — a title and a maker's imprint set in type — never a scan of anyone's artwork. That was a constraint we were handed, and it became the whole look of the site.

What this is not

Not a library, archive or collective, and not affiliated with any. No shop, no prices, no distro listings, no submissions. Where a claim is uncertain, we describe the practice rather than assert the fact.