In October 2022 we were awarded an Edinburgh City of Literature Community Fund grant of £500 to expand and develop our collection - to better serve EZL users and better reflect the diversity of the communities around us (zine communities, and the communities around us in Edinburgh).
Our collection so far has developed through the generous support of zine makers who have donated their zines, and this continues to be a core part of our collections development: as a DIY, grassroots, unfunded zine library, run by zine makers and enthusiasts, we hope we have a reciprocal relationship with zine makers. However, we are delighted to be able to use this grant to target and acquire particular zines, including from people who may not be able to afford to donate their zine freely, and to put some money back in the hands of zine makers!
With that in mind, for the first time we have written a collections development policy to describe how we collect zines generally, and a specific acquisitions policy (below) which describes how we will use this money to acquire zines. We want this process to be as transparent as possible! We will be doing our own research, but we also know how important word of mouth is in zines and acknowledge the limits of our own knowledges and networks, so we’d love to receive recommendations - you can recommend your own zines, or zines of others via our form.
Acquisitions
What’s in our collection?
We have 450+ zines in our collection, donated by their makers. We don’t collect demographics of zine makers when they submit.
What do we want more of?
We want to better represent the zine communities in Scotland and best serve the populace around EZL in central Edinburgh. With this in mind, we are interested in collecting zines from specific groups of the population and with an emphasis on the particular topics mentioned below, these are:
Creators:
LGBTQ Zine Makers
Disabled Zine Makers
Black Zine Makers
Asian Zine Makers
Zine Makers of Colour & Global Majority Zine Makers
New Scots
Working Class Zine Makers
Scottish Zine Makers, and Zine Makers Living in Scotland
Zines in other languages, particularly: those spoken in Edinburgh, like Polish, Mandarin, Urdu and Punjabi; Scots; Scottish Gaelic and alternative formats like Braille.
Themes:
Climate Emergency and Just Transition
Indy Ref/Indy Ref 2
Migration
Policing
Disability
Gentrification
Housing (homelessness, precarity, renting)
Work (service industry, sex work, arts, temporary or zero hour contracts, unions and strikes)
Caring and Care Work
Welfare/Benefits
Cost of Living
GRA/Trans rights/Trans Healthcare
How will we do this?
There will be two strands to this policy. The first is EZL member led research to identify gaps and silences in our collection and purchase zines accordingly. The other is by community consultation through a “nominate” a zine via Google Form. The form will be live for 4 weeks, from the 10th October and to 7th November. We encourage people to nominate as many zinesters that they feel fit the above criteria. We will then take the final list generated from this process and make a shortlist of zines according to budget and the above priorities. We will purchase zines directly from zine makers, in line with our policy of not including zines in the collection without the explicit permission of the zinester.
How will we be accountable?
We will aim to have purchased all zines by the end of November, and will share a full list of zines we’ve bought and how we’ve used the budget.
Any questions?
Please email edinburghzinelibrary@gmail.com with any questions!
