Zine Cataloging
by Sanford Berman
a talk delivered at the 2nd Annual
Madison Zine Fest, October
2005
I guess I'm expected to talk about cataloging zines. But the
terrible truth is that I never cataloged a zine. So it's with some
chutzpah that I approach the topic. However, I have either myself
cataloged or supervised that cataloging of library materials about
zines.
So let's address three issues or possibilities:
- How did ZINES finally get established as a
bona fide Library of Congress subject heading? And how can it be used in library catalogs
to identify zines themselves and materials about them?
- Would it be useful--for catalog users and librarians--to be able
to identify, through the assignment of specific sub-genre headings,
particular categories or kinds of zines?
- What about making ZINES available as a subheading, like
--PERIODICALS? So instead of assigning BOOKS AND READING--PERIODICALS
to Jenna Freedman's
Lower East Side Librarian Winter Solstice Shout Out, annual,
it would get BOOKS AND READINGS--ZINES?
Another question, is whether to treat zines as periodical runs or
catalog them as single, individual issues, the latter approach surely
permitting much more detailed note-making and subject analysis, but also
being more labor intensive. Knowing that
Jenna and
Jim Danky have opposing views on this, perhaps they'll express their
opinions later.
1.
Once upon a time--well, actually in early 1993, or 12 years ago,
Hennepin County Library in Minnesota
established a new subject heading for ZINES, announced it--together with
a scope note and cross-references--in
HCL CATALOGING BULLETIN No. 123, and formally recommended to the
Library of Congress that they
do likewise. We first assigned the ZINES rubric to Gunderloy and
Janice's
World of
zines: a guide to the independent magazine revolution, a 1992
title. That assignment was made with a subhead for --HISTORY AND
CRITICISM.
Until that time, the closest available LC form was FANZINE, which of
course could legitimately apply to pop culture fan magazines, but no
longer truly categorized or denoted what in our public note we described
as
"Underground," counterculture magazines that typically are
"printed, cheap, often given away, and rarely profitable,"
self-published as "voices of individuality and dissent" by people
committed to self-expression.
We retained FANZINES as a subcategory, making a "see also" reference
to it from ZINES. Subsequently, the BULLETIN printed many further
usage-examples and definitions for "Zines," always sharing with LC in
the ever-optimistic hope that they, too, would enlarge access to the
growing zine-phenomenon by recognizing it with a discrete subject
heading. I left Hennepin County Library in 1999. Perhaps a year ago, I
renewed the campaign to create a ZINES heading by directly sending
articles, postcards, fliers, and brochures, as well as bibliographic
citations, to the Chief of LC's Cataloging Policy & Support Office. All
these materials clearly demonstrated the reality, vitality and
uniqueness of zine publishing. (Incidentally, HCL had also innovated a
descriptor for ZINE PUBLISHING in 1993.) As of about March this year,
the response--to me, at least--had been decidedly tepid. And then, by
the end of June--maybe due to divine intervention or more likely further
requests from people like Andrea Grimes at San Francisco Public's zine
collection--LC did it, finally establishing a ZINES heading. They have
not yet, however, also innovated headings for ZINE DISTRIBUTORS and ZINE
LIBRARIES, nor have they mandated a "see also" from SELF-PUBLISHING to
the new ZINES--PUBLISHING. They HAVE introduced a potentially "blind"
see-also reference from ZINES to UNDERGROUND PERIODICALS
(which itself deserves replacing by the more commonly employed and
inclusive ALTERNATIVE PRESS).
Okay. Now that we belatedly have the heading, what's to be done with
it? I suggest two things, following HCL practice:
+assign ZINES alone as a genre heading only to actual zines in the
collection. Thus a ZINES search will retrieve all your zine holdings
in presumably an alphabetical, main-entry order.
+assign ZINES to materials dealing with the genre only with
subheads: e.g. ZINES--BIBLIOGRAPHY, ZINES--HISTORY AND CRITICISM,
ZINES--POLITICAL ASPECTS, or ZINES--REVIEWS.
2.
Given the proliferation of zines, it might enhance searching and
produce fewer indigestibly long sequences if a series of sub-category
genre headings were developed and then assigned, when appropriate,
instead of the simple ZINES rubric. (Naturally, these forms would
enjoy a "see also" reference from the broader, umbrella term, ZINES.) My
sense is that many zine sub-genres have emerged--and so should be
identified and be made retrievable--just as we already do with the
larger concept or genre, PERIODICALS (for instance, GAY PERIODICALS,
POLITICAL PERIODICALS, and RELIGIOUS PERIODICALS). Laura Griffin, way
back in 1993, already observed such categories as "literary zines,
sports zines, computer zines, and science-fiction zines." In the
meantime, I've noticed references to girl or grrrrrl zines, queer zines,
grafitti zines, goth zine, and perzines. My hope is that
somewhere--perhaps at Ohio State or
Salt Lake City Public--someone is confecting a mini-thesaurus of
zine categories that might be proposed to LC--but in any event could be
employed in-house by sizeable zine collections to permit more specific
and helpful access to the zine cosmos. (Parenthetically,
Mike Diana's infamous and
ultimately censored Boiled angel might have merited a heading
like COMIC ZINES, LC now recognizes two sub-genres: FANZINES and
E-ZINES, and HCL in the late 90s innovated a rubric for QUEER ZINES.)
3.
Lastly, understanding that zines, like any other periodicals, should
be assigned relevant topical headings, why not subdivide those topical
headings by --ZINES itself instead of --PERIODICALS? The result, for
instance, would be that Jenna's product would appear under BOOKS AND
READING--ZINES and LIBRARIANS--ZINES, rather than being subsumed (and
possibly less retrievable) within the larger standard categories: BOOKS
AND READINGS--PERIODICALS and LIBRARIANS--PERIODICALS. (Again, "see
also" ref should be made from the "Periodicals" form to the "Zines"
sub-category.)
Whaddya think?