How to Use the BPCL & What to Bring With You
- BPCL's hours are more limited than the main floor, but we're open late on Monday and Tuesday.
- We're an archive/repository, so most of our materials cannot be checked out.
- Most of our collection is not open for browsing. You need to request materials at our reference desk with your university ID or a photo ID.
- The reference collection is open for browsing! It's one of the best places to get started with popular culture research.
- We have a copier and a scanner available for copying/scanning materials that cannot be checked out. There is a fee for copying, but scanning is free.
What are zines?
Zines are often hard to describe, though you will likely know it when you see it. Usually they will have several of the following characteristics:
- Self-published
- Copied on a photocopier
- Stapled or folded
- Made in small batches (under 500)
- Community-focused
- Low-budget
- Distributed widely and cheaply (often free or for the cost of the photocopy)
- Sometimes serialized (for example: issue 1, issue 2, etc.)
- Underground, alternative, or non-mainstream
Zines also cover a wide variety of topics, including fandom (fanzines), personal memoirs or stories (perzines), literature or poetry (literary zines), art or comics (art zines, comic zines), DIY topics (DIY zines), social justice or current affairs topics (political zines), and more.
Browse by Subject
You can search for zines at BGSU by performing a keyword search or a genre search (using zines) in Library Search.
Here are a few search suggestions for finding specific kinds of zines:
- Personal zines: use the subject heading perzines or search for personal zines
- Review zines: use the subject heading reviewzines or search for review zines
- Letter zines: search for letter zines
- Music zines: search for music zines
- Diplomacy zines: use the subject heading dipzines or search for dipzines
- Comics zines: search for comics zines
- Slash zines: search for slashzines
- D.I.Y. (Do It Yourself) zines: use the subject heading diyzines or search for DIY zines