Our collection

Our zines are the foundation of what we do, and span from topics as broad as gender, sexuality, direct action and activism, to popular culture, local interest, photography, art, nature and more. We hope that any visitor to the library will find something that interests them, and the information contained in these zines is a resource available to all.

We have a catalogue of our zines which we use to keep track of what we have, to highlight any gaps in our collections to ensure we are getting as diverse a representation a possible in our collection, and to allow visitors an additional way to find and interact with our zines.

Our online catalogue is not a full reflection of our collection, yet. We are currently working on making our full catalogue available online and in our space.

FAQs about our collection

  • We accept donations of zines, and we would love to add yours to our collection. Please see information about donating zines here.

  • Yes! You can recommend a zine for us to buy using this form.

    As we have a limited budget we prioritise buying zines from marginalised makers and to fill gaps in our collection.

  • We do not currently sell zines, we operate as a reference library. You are welcome to come and browse our selection of zines during our opening times. We do, however, have an shop in the library which sells a number of GZL, and zine-related products to help fund our costs. Visit our shop here.

  • Zines can be shared for free or sold for profit. Many people choose to run their own Etsy (or similar platform) shop to sell their zines. We recommend donating your zines to your local zine library for their archive and for communal enjoyment.

    There is a comprehensive list of zine libraries here.

    If you are selling them, we recommend contacting a zine distro, or applying for a stall at one of the many zine fest events throughout the country.

  • We catalogue our zines to keep track of them, to highlight gaps in our collections, to ensure we are getting as diverse a representation as possible in our collection, and to allow visitors an additional way to find and interact with our zines.

    The zines are organised into categories. These categories are not fixed, and we hope to build upon them in the future with input from you.

    We ask anyone donating a zine to us to choose the category they would like their zine to go in. We try to be as radical, inclusive and collaborative in our cataloguing as possible, encouraging anyone working on it to challenge how their experiences, identity, and privileges may impact their cataloguing decisions.

    We are indebted to the work of Queer Zine Library who have informed much of our approach.

  • The online catalogue can be accessed here.

    We are still in the process of adding the titles of our zines in our collection to the online catalogue. We are also working on adding more information, including authors, descriptions of the zine, and images of the front covers of some zines.

    If you see your zine in the catalogue with any gaps in information, please get in touch.

    We are conscious of our responsibility in the processing of the personal data within zines; will avoid adding data to the online catalogue if we feel it could have an impact on the zine-maker, or if it is clear the zine was created with the intent of anonymity or being circulated only in a smaller, off-line context.

    If you would like your zine removed from the online catalogue or if you would like your zine removed from the collection completely, please let us know.