Regenstein Library’s zine collection looks at Chicago’s zine culture
Earlier this month, several thousand people roamed over two floors of a Columbia College building for the 4th annual Chicago Zine Fest. Moving through the youthful crowd was Sarah Wenzel, bibliographer for Literatures of Europe and the Americas at the University of Chicago’s Regenstein Library.
Wenzel has been a zine fan since 2000. She gravitated to Quimby’s, the North Avenue bookstore that is an unofficial clubhouse for zine lovers, soon after arriving in Chicago in 2007.
Quimby’s philosophy, according to store manager Liz Mason, is to “sell hard-to-find, weird, aberrant, saucy or lowbrow printed matter.” Wenzel started the Regenstein Library’s Chicago zine collection in 2010. She curated a show of 79 zines in its Special Collections Gallery titled, “My Life is an Open Book: DIY Autobiography,” which runs through April 13.
We met in the gallery for this edited exchange on zine culture and creativity.
Michael Sauers is the Director of Logan Library in Logan, UT. Prior to this he was one of the founding staff and Technology Manager for Do Space in Omaha, NE. After earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany's School of Information Science and Policy Michael spent his first 20 years as a librarian training other librarians in technology along with time as a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, a technology consultant, and a bookseller. He has written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and has published 14 books ranging from library technology, blogging, Web design, and an index to a popular horror magazine. In his spare time, he blogs at TravelinLibrarian.info, runs The Collector's Guide to Dean Koontz website at CollectingKoontz.com, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
Unless otherwise stated, all opinions are my own and are not to be considered those of the City of Logan, UT.
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