Join the Academic and Research Libraries Group Scotland on Friday the 14th of June from 10am-1pm for an online zine morning! With multiple speakers, come and discover how you can use zine making in your service for many wellbeing, health and research benefits. Click here to register.

See the agenda and speakers below!

Encouraging zine discovery and creation by students in Higher and Further Education:
Penny Robertson will discuss City of Glasgow College Library’s successful bid for funding with the Europe Challenge for their project where library staff and co-created zines with students. The objective of the project was to develop positive relationships with students, promote wellbeing following the COVID 19 Pandemic, and to encourage the development of creative voice in both library staff and students. Penny will outline challenges and provide guidance for applying for funding in the context of student collaboration and zine-based projects in Further Education.

Bridget McCall will outline the ongoing project at the University of Dundee to create a collaborative guide to small-press and zine creation and discovery. The University of Dundee Library currently holds a small zine collection which is managed by the University’s Museums Service and artist-led social enterprise Coin Operated Press. The collection is predominately used by students from the University’s art school (DJCAD). Through collaboration with Coin Operated Press, Zine researchers at the University of Dundee and technical staff from the library’s CreateSpace and DJCAD the library hopes to create a guide to zines and small press publications which will engage a broader population of students in making and reading zines.

Zines in academic spaces: the Glasgow School of Art Library:
Assistant Librarians Charlotte Dunn and Jenna Meek will discuss the importance of zines within academic spaces – not only as outputs but as authentic sources that can be used to diversify academic research. Using a ‘Zine Cultures’ workshop delivered to fashion students as a case study, they will discuss how zines provide a platform for those who are often excluded from publishing and higher education, and how it is important to make space for zines in academic libraries to ensure students see themselves represented in library collections, as well as providing legitimacy to zines as teaching and research materials.

Zines Subject Headings project at the GSA Library
Hillary Leslie is an Information and Library Studies student at the University of Strathclyde who worked with GSA Library on a Zines Subject Headings project as part of her ILS course placement. Hillary will discuss the process of applying subject headings to our zine collection using several thesauri, including Homosaurus and the Zine Subject Thesaurus, to improve online searching and discoverability of our zine collection, as well as ensure the diverse nature of our zine collection is recorded within our catalogue records.

Tiny Zine Swap Shop: The Mental Health Benefits of Zinemaking
Fi Johnston presents her research on how zinemaking can be of benefit to young people’s mental health, providing practical tips along the way on how libraries can apply this research through zinemaking workshops.