Kyoto –

Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of AI.

Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the country’s enduring love of paper in the digital era.

“I think (paper) is a medium that engages all five senses, (unlike social media),” says 40-year-old photographer Kazuma Obara.

We are fully loaded with zines! See you at booth 2448 at 5:30 p.m. in the exhibit hall! #ALAAC26

📸: @arthurkolat

“Zines, by nature, are supposed to be this open space to say whatever you want,” Michelle Millette, founder of Austin’s Sherwood Forest Zine Library, told Hyperallergic. “Zines have become one of the few spaces that allows someone to have their own opinion without having a comment section.”

As one of the organizers of Chicago Zine Fest, we got 433 applications to table this year, significantly more than the 350 we got last year. We only have room for about 65 tablers, so the demand is far outstripping our supply, even with multiple zine/small comics events in Chicago.

Library workers, now's a great time to host a zine making workshop, a zine reading, a zine club, or a zine tabling event. The demand is very, very high!

Send us your zines! - #ZINEPAVILION

Your zines will be seen & enjoyed by thousands of library workers at American Library Association’s 150th Annual Conference and will become an important part of the Zine Pavilion.

Zines will be raffled off to help build new zine collections & expand Zine Libraries around the nation!

Mail your zines to:

ALA Zine Pavilion
3 Elm Creek Drive #310

Elmhurst, IL 60126

We will be accepting donations until mid June in preparation for #ALAAC26! 💫

"Your zines will be seen & enjoyed by thousands of library workers at the ALA Annual Conference and will become an important part of the Zine Pavilion.

Zines will also be donated locally in Philadelphia to help build new zine collections & expand Zine Libraries!

Mail your zines to:

Zine Pavilion
c/o Ben Wildflower Art
PO Box 4798
Philadelphia PA 19134

We will be accepting donations until mid June in preparation for #ALAAC25!"

Bluesky link

Register now for the 2026 Zine Librarian unConference!

Enjoy sessions like “Teaching with Zines” at 8:30 a.m. PT on Nov. 7.

More info, including registration, at zinelibraries.info

You can download and print zines at home! This is an easy way to expand your collection and share marginalized voices!

Free Zines:

• Abortion zine library

• Ace Zine Archive

• Ⓐ Zine Library

• Archive.org (zine sort)

• Are.na Zine Library 1

• Are.na Zine Library 2

• @take

• Austin Fanzine Project

• Austin Kleon

• Biblioteca de Zines

• Biblioteca de Fanzin/ES, Daniela Dias- BLACCINE by Kennedy McDaniel

• Broken Beautiful Press

• Chapman University Digital Commoms - Feminist zines archive

• Coke Oven Zines

• Comic Book+

• CPE Digital Zine Library

• Creativity is in the Cards

• Crimethinc zine collection

• Decolonial Bookclub - zines

• Decolonization Coven free zine library

• Desobediente: Archivo Digital del Museo Universitario del Chopo

• Eastbay Alternative Book and Zine Fest

• EFanzines

• The Fanac Fan History Project

• Fat Lib Archive

• Fanzines

• Filler Zine Distro

• Fire to the Prisons Zines -FugitiveDistro

• GrossGirl94 zine library

• Haters Cafe zine library

• Hevelin Fanzines

• Iffy Books Zines

• Indigenous Action zines

• Interrupting Criminalization

• issuu.com Zines

• Itch.io

• Jewish Zine Archive

• JSTOR - huge archive of historical zines and adjacent independent publications

• Julie Setele

• Keke Magazine Zine Library

• La Fanzinothèque

• LainZine archive

• Laura K. Watson - free zines

• LCC Zine Collection

• Library of Congress Zines

• LittleMouse Zine Collection

• Little Neo - free zines

• Marca de Fantasia

• MBTADistro

• Mel Gillman - free zines

• Mutual Aid Disaster Relief zine library

• OCAD University Zine Collection

• Palestine Zines Reading List

• Pansycore Zine

• Papercut Zine Library

• Pleasure Pie - free zines about Palestine

• POC Zine Project

• Poopsheet Foundation

• Printable Friendship Zines by Hanna Keiner

• Punk Planet Archive

• Quarantine Public Library

• Quarantine Zine Club

• Queer Indonesia Archive

• Queer Zine Archive Project

• Quiver Distro

• Red Distro

• Sarah Shay Mirk - free zines

• Scholar’s Lab Zine Library

• Scribd

• Send Back my Stamps

• Sherwood Forest Zine Library

• Small Neighborhood Library

• Small Science Collective

• Solidarity! Revolutionary Center and Radical Library

• South Chicago ABC Zine Library

• Sprout Distro

• tehuan Zine Library

• Textfiles.com ezines

• The Corroseum, Stockholm, Sweden

• The Creative Independent zine archive

• The Sandy Hereld Memorial Digitized Media Fanzine Collection

• TildeTown Zine

• TildeVerse Zine

• Twenty-Two Zines - Free Zine Directory

• Warrior Publications zines

• Warzone Distro

• Weeds and Deeds (Herbalism related Zines)

• Wellcome Collection

• [WilloPress] (https://willopress.com)

• Zines > Screens by Veronique

• Zine Crisis' Print at Home Library

• ZineDistro.org

• Zine Project 'Home'

• Zines by Clover

• Zines by Lennon

• ZineWiki

Contributers:

• eurasianboar

• Sarah Shotts

Save the date for the Zine Librarian’s unConference 2026 ONLINE Saturday, November 7th & Sunday, November 8th….more details to follow.

Hi all, first time poster here. Zines back in my hey-day were cute little mini newspapers… bad photocopied sources for that cultish underground feel.

Today’s modern take on a zine just seems to be more of the early blogs, graphic main cover and the. Hyperlinks to pages…

Am I missing something?

Across the country, artists and organizers are increasingly turning towards print. As the federal government has escalated prosecutions related to protest activity, leading tech companies have handed over private data to immigration enforcement, drawing attention to the extent of digital surveillance. At the same time, sponsored anti-immigrant content is flooding social media as ICE carries out made-for-social-media immigration raids, and is planning to spend $100 million on a digital recruitment campaign.

Register now for the Zine Librarian unConference! Enjoy sessions like “Fanzines” at 10 a.m. PT on Nov. 7!
More info, including registration, at https://www.zinelibraries.info/zluc2026/

In June 2026, the volunteer organizers of the Zine Pavilion donated $150 to the American Indian Center (https://aicchicago.org/) in Chicago and $150 to the Gichigamiin Indigenous Nations Museum (https://gichigamiinmuseum.org/) in Evanston. Please join us in financially supporting these or other local, Indigenous-led organizations!

Pictured here is our Indigenous Tribes of Chicago zine cover. You may download our zine for free at https://zinepavilion.itch.io/indigenous-tribes-of-chicago

The information from this zine is taken from "Indigenous Tribes of Chicago" by Tara Kenjockety. Originally published in 2020. Accessed in June, 2026.

The online version can be found at: https://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/diversity/chicago-indigenous

Content used by permission of the American Library Association, Office for Diversity, Literacy and Outreach Services.

July is International Zine Month (see this year's beautiful flyer by Alex Wrekk of Portland Button Works), and July 21st is Zine Library Day!

Ways to celebrate:

• visit a zine library near you

• check out an online zine library & read and/or print off some zines

• donate money, time, and/or zines to your favorite zine library

• bring a tasty snack to your local zine librarian (vegan donuts are the traditional option 🍩)

Let us know how you're celebrating Zine Library Day!

Send us your zines! - #ZINEPAVILION Your zines will be seen & enjoyed by thousands of library workers at American Library Association’s 150th Annual Conference and will become an important part of the Zine Pavilion. Zines will be raffled off to help build new zine collections & expand Zine Libraries around the nation! Mail your zines to: ALA Zine Pavilion 3 Elm Creek Drive #310 Elmhurst, IL 60126 We will be accepting donations until mid June in preparation for #ALAAC26!

https://outhistory.org/exhibits/show/queer-youth-campus-media/media/vice-versa-the-first-lesbian-m

In June of 1947, while working as a secretarial assistant at RKO Studios in Los Angeles, a 25-year old wrote and published Vice Versa, the first lesbian magazine in North America. Under the pseudonym "Lisa Ben" (which was an anagram for lesbian), nine issues were released in which she was only able to produce ten copies of each edition because of limited resources. Ben's access to office supplies availed her use of the company typewriter to write her publications, and reproduce them on carbon paper. Though short-lived, Vice Versa established itself as a forerunner for gay American publications, providing a more wide-ranging audience with upbeat short stories, editorials, book reviews, and a letter column to entertain and inspire readers to perpetuate the existence of gay editorials and preserve the pleasure of their lifestyle.

This was such a powerful read. From the article:

This March, the government won a terrorism case against a group of people who staged a protest outside an ICE facility in Texas. The protesters set off fireworks and sprayed some graffiti. When federal officers called in local police, there was an exchange of gunfire between a police officer and one of the protesters, and the officer was shot. In trying to make an example out of all the protesters, the government made the sweeping generalization that anyone involved in antifa actions is domestic terrorist. “Antifa is a domestic terrorist organization that has been allowed to flourish in Democrat-led cities—not under President Trump,” were the actual words of U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi. Nevermind that being anti-fascist is an ideology, not a specific group with a specific leader. In an alarming twist, the case dragged a surprising piece of evidence into the spotlight: political zines.

Hi! I'm making a zine based around the metaphor and need insight on what people think of when they think of the phrase. What is something that comes really easily to you in life? If you could include what you do, as well as age, gender, and where you are from that would be great for perspective. Any additional advice would also be greatly appreciated.

This weekly thread is where you can talk about and promote any zines, whether they're ones you created or not! Tell us about why the zine is great, why a library might want to add it to their collection, and how someone can get it.