With new zine club, Barnard literary scene turns a new page

When it comes to zines, students take one of three stances: Love them, hate them, or have just never heard of them.

Barnard’s new Zine Library Club had its first meeting on Thursday. According to Jenna Freedman, the zine librarian at Lehman Hall who formed the club, zines are “small, low budget, self-published, and self-distributed publications, written by authors outside of the mainstream who are motivated by desire to share thoughts or skills with a community rather than to make money or to get famous.”

Barnard’s library has a collection of thousands of zines and is focused on zines written by women. The collection is actually the world’s only circulating collection of zines in an academic library.

“We also collect zines on feminism and femme identity by people of all genders,” Freedman said. “The zines are personal and political publications on activism, anarchism, body image, third-wave feminism, gender, parenting, queer community, riot grrrl, sexual assault, and other topics.”

“Zines can create a sense of community and they bring people together,” Rhonda Kauffman, a zine library intern, said.

“Students have often offered to volunteer to help or expressed a desire to be involved with the zine collection,” Freedman said. “Creating a club, or whatever it will be called, seemed like a good way to give people a chance to do just that.”

Freedman continued, “The main thing I want to get out of it is a greater institutional investment in the Barnard Library Zine collection. I think a lot of people see it as cool, or whatever, but I’m not sure that many people other than the student zine assistants and I see it as our own.”

The Zine Library Club is not offically recognized yet, but the members are working on getting approval from the University.

The meeting, held in the library’s basement, was laid-back and very welcoming. The students in attendance represented a wide range of ages, from first-years to seniors, although the group was entirely from Barnard.

It was decided that the club would make a group zine and/or a “Dis-Orientation Guide” for incoming students. The guide would introduce students to cool things happening on campus and in the city—basically an orientation that’s not all dreary.

“Columbia’s missing a culture that’s not mainstream frat house,” Thorey Munro, BC ’13, agreed. “The guide would make it easier to find that culture.”

The group also discussed creating a blog, or even a Ning—a do-it-yourself social networking site that provides an alternative to Facebook.

A blog or Ning would provide a tech-savvy alternative to fliers, and spread word about the little-known club. “I’ve tried to get people involved in the zine collection, but most people don’t know about it and aren’t involved,” Jennie Rose Halperin, a zine library assistant, former Spectator music editor, and BC ’10, said. “I hope that the club can get more students involved.”

Freedman was happy with how the first meeting turned out. “Zine culture can be cliquey,” she said. “This wasn’t. People didn’t seem afraid. I’m hoping it takes on a life of its own. I don’t want to drive it. I want it to be what students want it to be.”