Classification Party

On Saturday we had our classification party, an attempt to sort the collection into a handful of very broad categories. We're re-shelving everything this afternoon so, from tomorrow, it should be ever so slightly easier to find the kind of zines you're interested in. The categories are (Currently - we're open to changing the system!):

- Perzines (Autobiographical zines)

- Arts and crafts, which includes illustration, comics, photography, film, graphic design, fine art - all visual arts, basically

- Activism, which includes LGBT, gender, politics, that kind of thing

- Food and the environment, which includes cooking, veganism, vegetarianism, gardening, eco stuff, fair trade, animals and travel as well

- Creative writing, which includes poetry and short stories

- Sports - all the football and rugby league zines we have

- Music

- Other - as you would expect, most of the zines in the collection don't fit into these categories so the 'other' section is understandably large

These categories aren't perfect or very precise, but we think they'll be a useful guide when browsing the shelves. Obviously we'd encourage you to look at absolutely everything, but we understand if you don't have a spare few days to read every zine in the collection!

Thanks to all the people who came to help us sort the zines into categories. Thanks to Stef Bradley for making the posters and to Cherry Styles for taking some lovely photos of everyone hard at work. Enjoy!

New in: For the Sake of Magic and Wisdom #1, #2 and #3

For the Sake of Magic and Wisdom is a "collaborative three part zine" with illustrations by Thomas Hedger and writing by Faye Brooks.

http://www.thomashedger.co.uk/for-the-sake-of-magic-and-wisdom-a-juxtaposition-a-zine#545636

New in: Candy Twist #5

"Candy Twist fanzine #5 features interviews with Good Grief, Making Marks, The Blanche Hudson Weekend, Shelflife Records, Tunabunny, Without Feathers, The Silhouettes, Dorothy Gambrell, Kill People You Like!, The Flatmates, The Middle Ones, The Very Most, and The Quirky Girl Crafter. Contributions by Kristin Gill (February Records), Andy Hart (A Fog Of Ideas), Jörgen Svennson (Fraction Discs), and Pete Bowers (Horowitz). A round table with Phil Wilson (The June Brides), Jyoti Mishra (White Town), Darren Hayman (Hefner), The Primitives, and Kip Berman (The POBPAH), eight mini-interviews and the usual articles by me complete the latest 96 pages of DIY pop".

http://candytwistfanzine.blogspot.co.uk/

New in: A Terror Beyond Falling

A Terror Beyond Falling is an account of "(just about) living with depression, anxiety, Avoidant Personality Disorder (AvPD), self-harming tendencies, suicidal ideation and a history of alcohol dependence. This includes everything that goes along with this, from day to day living to the various forms of treatment, medication (who needs to be happy when you can be numb) and spells of hospitalisation".

http://aterrorbeyondfalling.com/

New in: Another big donation!

 

We recently received another big jiffy bag full of zines from Anne in Japan and they're all safely on the shelves in the library now. We won't detail each one individually, but there's things like Liz Yerby's Moscow Diary, Work in Progress by Gemma Flack and Longview by Maria Forde.

Thanks again for the donations! Are you clearing out your zine collection? We'd love to take them off your hands. Send us an email and we can discuss.

New in: Kids With Puns #2

The second issue of Kids With Puns is here. Features more illustrated puns by Alex Screen, Sean Murphy, Katie Miller, Trevor Thompson, Peter Judson, Martin Grainger, Jaco Haasbroek, Haydn Symons and George McCallum.

Kids With Puns

Buy a copy

New in: Shape & Situate #5

"In a nutshell, Shape & Situate is a zine of posters made by artists and DIY creative folk from within Europe, each poster highlighting the (often hidden) history and lives of radical inspirational women and collectives from Europe.

The zine aims to activate feminist cultural memory, inspire, and to visually bring women’s social and political history to life and into view.

This issue features 23 black and white posters of women who have acted as organisers, activists, agitators, pioneers, educators, or role models, from a wide range of disciplines including: art, space, music, emergency services, education, literature, ecology and environmental issues, astronomy, radio, NGOs, and beyond."

Etsy

Shape & Situate

Classification Party

It has been scientifically proven that adding the word 'party' to anything automatically makes it sound more fun. So here we are attempting to make sorting things into a vaguely logical order sound exciting. On January 18th we have hired the little room at Nexus Art Cafe and we'd like people to come and help us organise the collection into a handful of very broad categories. We think this will help people to browse the shelves a little bit easier.

All the information is available on the Facebook event page. Please feel free to share the event with your pals! You don't have to commit or anything, you can just pop in for a few minutes if you happen to be in the area. There's sure to be some nice people to talk to about zines and whatever else you like talking about. And you can have a cup of tea and a slice of cake while you're at it. Check out the super cool poster below, as designed by the extremely talented Stef Bradley of Today Zine fame.

Whether you can come or not, we'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their support since we took over the library in the summer. Hopefully 2014 will bring lots of exciting new developments for the library! Happy New Year!

New in: Big Donation #2

Another big pile of zines! This time, from Anne who lives in Japan. Thanks!

New in: Big Donation #1

Look at all these! The lovely Ben Catt has kindly donated a fair chunk of his zine collection to the library. All of these are now in the library for you to read. Includes stuff like Be Honourable by Josie Long, Twigs and Apples and Your Pretty Face is Going Straight to Hell. Plus loads of other neat stuff. Thanks Ben!

New in: 13 issue one

Azra Page says that her zine, '13' "is focused on art based around the fantasy world in my head. This world is made up of thirteen universes. I draw abstract pictures in sharpie, make collages and paint these universes".

http://insomniaincazrapage.wordpress.com/

New in: Node Pajomo XIV

Mail art project in zine form! 

New in: Lost Possessions

"Lost Possessions by Kevin Harris and Martin Dudley explores how, through a series of vignettes, we experience a kind of community through loss of things – gloves, scarves, hats, a bootee, a tie. Things which soon become a common feature of railings, benches and other street furniture, inviting us to speculate on how they became lost. They are temporary moments of connection to unseen and unknown others, drawing us into a consideration of other people’s lives that can never be resolved."

New in: Projects Not Programs

"Projects not Programs by the Institute of Cultural Inquiry is a manifesto by the Los Angeles creative group, the Institute of Cultural Inquiry that caught my eye both for its playful aesthetic and its message of open-ended creative exploration."

New in: The New Wizard of the West

The New Wizard of the West, published by The Periodical, is "An interview with Tesla, the Modern Miracle-Worker, who is Harnessing the Rays of the Sun; has Discovered Ways of Transmitting Power without Wires and of Seeing by Telephone; has Invented a Means of Employing Electricity as a Fertiliser; and, Finally, is Able to Manufacture Artificial Daylight" originally printed in Pearson's Magazine in May 1899.

http://bookleteer.com/blog/2013/11/the-periodical-issue-13/

New in: Today IV by Stef Bradley

The latest issue of Stef Bradley's very funny mini comic 'Today' features drawings of embarrassing childhood events, revenge, terrifying insects and loads more. Find it in the mini zines section at the back of the library.

Etsy

New in: Mythologising Me: Seven is for Kitty Heaven

The seventh issue of Mythologising Me is a really great perzine that talks about things like "going back to study again, a trip to Norway and family deaths as well as mid-twenties angst". Come and have a look! You'll be able to find it in the mini zine section at the back of the library.

Etsy

New in: Found by Jamie Martin

"Found is a 16 page photo zine created as a personal project for myself. This publication features 35mm black and white photography of locations and situations around Manchester."

You can buy a copy from here and have a sneak peek at the inside here.

New in: Up North 1

"up north is about getting photographs off the screen and sharing them in print. Future issues will depend on how often I get out and about with the camera. It would be great to hear from anyone interested in collaborating or contributing work, either in the UK or elsewhere. Any style or subject. Film or digital."

Up North

New in: The Chapess issue one

Re-issue of the first issue of the Chapess (2011) - a collective zine edited by Zara Gardner

Text and illustrations by

Ruby Ratafia
Misty Pane
Anna Anon
Betsy Hatter
Beth Morrison
Lucy Abel
Hels Belles
Cherry Styles
A. Stone
Deb O'Nair
Loretta De La Coeur
Zara Gardner

Buy it from here!

New in: Indie Kids

Indie Kids is a comic that "follows the annoying day to day lives of the 3 friends through love, heartbreak and rare out of print 7 inch records", made by Mat Adams. These have come all the way from Australia!

Etsy shop

New in: Sloucher

We were given a copy of Sloucher, a zine about music and short stories, to add to the collection at the mini zine fair we exhibited at in Sheffield the other week. 

New in: Playerist

New in: The Nature of Change

20 pages
19 x 19 cm
b/w drawings risoprinted / fullcolour digitalprinted
50 copies

http://timromanowsky.com/index.php?/illustration/the-nature-of-change/

New in: Friek in Carrousel

Friek in Carrousel
40 pages
24 x 18 cm
b/w drawings risoprinted
50 copies

http://timromanowsky.com/index.php?/illustration/freaks-in-carrousel/

New in: Spongebob Mini Zine

32 pages with sponges from different artists / risoprinted on yellow paper / 55 copies
a zyklop publication
3 € + shipping
contact me: post@timromanowsky.com

New in: Activism Through Zines

One page zine by Chella Quint.

New in: Tye Die Tapes issue 1

Little zine by Sheffield based tape label Tie Die Tapes.

New in: The Chapess issue 2: Wonder Women

The second issue of the Chapess zine, edited by Zara Gardner and Cherry Styles.

17 contributors over a whopping 51 pages -

Lizzie Campbell
Helen Entwistle
Natalie Bradbury
Kay Richards
SMG
Beth Morrison
Helen Piercy
Gemma Correll
Adam Doughty
Becky Garratt
Christa Harris
Miriam Nice
Vicki Johnson
Nicola Renshaw
Joy Martin
Cherry Styles
Zara Gardner

Buy it from here!

New in: This is Me Singing #1

"This Is Me Singing takes a look at internet stardom at its least viral. The zine features a whole rafter of screenshots from videos uploaded to Youtube under the tags “Me Singing”, in which popular songs are lovingly reworked beneath the watchful eye of a webcam.

The people behind these video clips are a departure from your usual Youtube sensations, however, since each one has only received a tiny number of views and is unlikely to hit the big time any time soon. So what is it that makes ordinary people so keen to transfer their own small bursts of karaoke from the privacy of their bedrooms to the wider echelons of the internet?

It’s a phenomenon we haven’t quite figured out yet, but what comes across with many of the singers here is their sense of self-consciousness, with some apologising for awkward behaviour, or their voices not being up to scratch. Beneath the sheepishness, however, lies a quiet passion for the song they have chosen, and some deeper impulse for it to be noticed by a wider audience – no matter how small."

Taken from A Closed Caption's Etsy shop!

New in: Time Travels in...

"Jump blues is blues at its most fun, a call to arms not to bewail tribulations or reflect upon the abyss, but to let loose, wail, and party". Time Travels in Jump Blues is a handy pocket sized guide to jump blues!

"Before Rock and Roll, children were children and then went straight to being little adults, wearing the same clothes, doing the same things as their parents. The Rock and Roll movement was the first time that teenagers created their own identity. With their own self-expressive fashion, their own records, and their rock inspired fun loving lifestyle, it was an identity strongly in contrast to that of their parents generation". Another handy pull out mini zine that tells you everything you need to know about Rock and Roll! 

theedgeoftheuniverseprintingpress.blogspot.co.uk

New in: The Inventory

"Abandon Normal Devices is an annual arts festival celebrating digital culture and the ways in which people engage with a rapidly changing technological environment. The festival alternates between Liverpool and Manchester, and is always filled with pretty groundbreaking work, so we were really pleased to receive a micro-commission this time around.

In keeping with this year’s theme –Success — we decided to create a fanzine-style publication which contrasted the traditional awestruck, home-made, low-circulation zine with content pilfered from the online profiles of artists involved in the festival. Titled The Inventory, the zine was meant as a glimpse at the changing role of the internet as a tool to promote and publicise an individual’s career.

We wanted to question how the role of artist — and to some extent, anybody who uses social media platforms — had evolved, using Marshall McLuhan’s 1967 work The Medium Is The Massage: An Inventory of Effects as our starting point. Considering the ways in which the internet creates a prism through which a person’s character and career can be viewed, it seemed appropriate to look to McLuhan’s work with its emphasis on the method of communication over the actual material being communicated.

Alongside this, we included tips from brash online marketing consultancies, which analysed how best to “extend your influence” online — right down to the length of characters needed for a successful tweet.

We handed out copies of the finished zine at as many of the festival sites as we could get to, which was a good way of making sure we got to see a lot of the work on show. Particular highlights included Wafaa Bilal’s Meme Junkyard — a huge inflatable Techno Viking head, sustained purely on #technoviking tweets, and Border Bumping, which reworked national boundaries according to where mobile phone networks placed them. Skype karaoke at the Salutation pub was another of many enjoyable moments.

There are still a couple of copies of The Inventory left, so if you’d like one, feel free to drop us a line on closedcaption@live.co.uk"

Taken from http://aclosedcaption.wordpress.com/2012/09/17/the-inventory/
https://www.etsy.com/shop/AClosedCaption

New in: Gaudy Verse II

"The second issue of Gaudy Verse features poems about artistic young dons, dancefloor catastrophes and smartphones that won't let you out of their sight."

You can buy yourself a copy of Gaudy Verse 2 on Etsy for £1.50.

New in: Jelly Cake Season 2 - Episode 2 + 3

"Maybe one day Jelly Cake will be about vigilante fighting forces battling for domination. Of how multidimensional supernatural forces are assaulting Kizzy, Bailey, Helen and Estelle with deadly force. Of how unsavory villain invaders are putting our planet in crisis. But for now it's all about pointless, random and mundane micro-transactions that our reluctant super-heroines encounter on a daily basis."

Salford Zine Library Visits Sheffield!

We're taking the zine library on the road! Or at least some of the zine library. And we're going by train. Anyway, on November 2nd we'll be carrying a hefty chunk of the zines in the library over the Pennines to Sheffield for a zine fair and zine making workshop at Bank Street Arts.

The zine fair starts at 11am and, as well as being able to have a look at our collection, you'll be able to buy some zines from some ace local zinesters too! We're going to be setting up a little 'reading room' area so you can relax with a pile of your favourite zines. Then from 2pm there's a FREE zine making workshop, which will be running until 8pm (You don't have to stay that long if you don't want to, though!). It should be loads of fun!

Places on the workshop are limited, so booking is encouraged. Do that and find out more information about the day by clicking here. Also, if you're coming to along, remember to bring some donations for us! We're always dead grateful to receive new zines to add to the collection.

New in: English Chicago Review Issue 3

Issue three of The English Chicago Review features poetry from Rowland Bagnall, Rebecca Bird, Jonathan Butcher, Jim Conwell, Alan Corkish, Anthony Costello, Craig Coyle, Stephen Devereux, Doug Draime, Brett Evans, Andy Fletcher, Chris Hardy, Aideen Henry, Richard Hughes, Nigel Jarrett, Allan Johnston, PD Lyons, Mary McCollum, Tim McLafferty, Ottilie Mulzet, Robert Nisbet, Jon Plunkett, Laura Potts, Wendy Pratt, Kieran Setright, Maria Taylor and Lucy Winrow.

http://englishchicagoreview.blogspot.co.uk/

New in: Hand Job Issue Two

"Hand Job is a literary zine that has a range of poetry and short stories from around the UK, as well as sporadic illustrations throughout. Issue 2 features writing on a range of subjects, from OFSTED, to people drowning."

http://handjobzine.wordpress.com/

New in: Glad to See the Back of You

"Glad to See the Back of You" is a photography zine about punk jackets by Ricky Adam.

http://www.rickyadamphoto.com

Let's talk about classification

Hey! At some point in the near future we want to organise a 'classification party'. Basically, we'll get loads of people to come down to the library and help us sort the collection into broad genres or categories. It'll make it so much easier to find stuff! The plan is that there'll be some nice music and cake and cups of tea available and things like that.

Before that, though, it'd be really useful to get an idea of what genres/categories you all think would be appropriate. They have to be fairly broad, but not so broad that they're completely meaningless. Any ideas anyone?

- Sport
- Poetry
- Music (Maybe this needs to be divided into narrower categories?)
- Environment
- Politics
- LGBT
- Personal
- Compilation
- Photography
- Illustration
- Health
- Comics

Any other ideas would be appreciated! Feel free to tell me some of those aren't necessary too. Also, it'd be great if you could tell people you know who are interested in zines to join this group. Then we can have more people involved in the discussion/party and it'll be even more fun. Comments on this post and our Facebook, tweets to @SalfordZineLib, or emails to salford zine library at gmail dot come would be very gratefully received. And if the idea of a classification party sounds like fun to you, keep your eyes peeled for more info! I'll update the discussion as we go along at the bottom of this post.

 

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Update 7/10/2013: It's been suggested that there might be too many categories here. Do we think that we're better off with a less is more kind of approach? If so, what do you think the core categories are?

New in: Reading Between the Lines Volume One

Reading Between the Lines, by Robert Shaw, is "a collection of illustrated quotes from various types of media, but mainly movies". All your favourite movie quotes, illustrated.

Guess the name of the film!

http://iamrobertshaw.co.uk/