Vol 26 | No 1 | Fall 17
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Gems In The UCI Libraries

ImageRecently completed and now available to researchers is the UCI Special Collection of Zines (MS-M059.) Composed from various collections, acquisitions and donations from the Orange County Zine Fest, the UCI Libraries Zinefest and students from around the UCI campus, the zines (short for "Magazine" or "fanzine") that compose the collection represent the diverse perspectives, viewpoints and experiences of their creators, covering topics as far-ranging as "politics, music scenes, race and culture, fan clubs, social justice, gender and sexuality, counter-culture and art and philosophy."

At nearly 300 zines strong the collection is incredibly rich in its representation of the contemporary zine community and it continues to grow as we accept donations from individual students and student organizations. Traditionally small-circulation booklets, pamphlets and flyers, the zines in the UCI Special Collection of Zines also include self-printed, printed-on-demand and even constructions that border on artist-books (books that are meant to be read not for their textual content but their aesthetic construction.) Zinesters (creators) of zines take it as an opportunity to offer their raw, unfiltered, stories both serious and silly (often combinations of the two) providing outsiders a unique perspective into their lives.

Highlights from the collection include comical mashups of popular anime and woman's magazine aesthetics such as "Android Seventeen Volume I" and the expositional, "An Introduction to Iranian Cinema," both purchased from the zinesters at the Orange County Zine fest in 2013. The collection also includes donations of student work created during UCI's Zinefest in 2015 and 2016, such as the playfully illustrated and sardonically self-aware "10 Things Nobody Told Me! [2015]" and the raw and revealingly open, "Portrait of a Suicide Survivor [2016]." These works embody the spirit of zine creation with their quick production and DIY aesthetics. UCI's Zinefest was a collaborative effort of Visual Arts Librarian Emilee Mathews and faculty members such as Professor Bridget Cooks and Professor Jeanne Scheper who asked their classes to create a unique zine inspired from viewing the items from the collection. The results, processed and added to the collection itself, are unique primary source objects giving a direct look at the concerns and creative processes of the students from the time.

Now that the UCI Special Collection of Zines is available to researchers, we encourage both consulting the collection but also contributing to it. We hope faculty, staff, students and organizations who create or are interested in creating zines, explore how to be a part of UCI history through archival contribution.

For more information on the Libraries' zine collection please contact Derek Quezada, Outreach and Public Services Librarian for Special Collection and Archives at quezadad@uci.edu.