Sarah Arkle, Deputy Librarian
We’ve recently been having discussions in the Library office about exploring more ‘analogue’ communication methods with our students. Current cohorts of undergraduates experience so much of their lives through screens – as do we, as employees – that we wondered whether a more tactile, tangible thing to look at, to handle, to read. Whilst most students are very respectful of the handful of rules we have in place, it must be tiring for them to receive email upon email asking them to please stop eating / vaping / littering / bringing their friends from other colleges etc. in the library.
To that end, we invited a group of local zine-makers, Imperfect Bound Collective, to facilitate a zine making workshop here in College. It was partly an opportunity for us to start thinking more practically about how we might want to put together a publication outlining library rules and information, and partly an opportunity for students to have some fun. Zine making is, as Luca from the collective put it, ‘high on self-expression and low on perfectionism’ in a way that academic work often is not, so we thought the opportunity for some low-pressure creative fun might be welcome mid-Hilary Term.
Zine making is high on self-expression and low on perfectionism in a way that academic work often is not.
To explain – “a zine (pronounced ‘zeen’) is most commonly a handmade publication often made in small circulations, printed and bound using various methods and sizes. The topics are on absolutely anything you can imagine. There are no specific skills required to make a zine, typically just a pen, some paper and an idea!”[1] The workshop began with an explanation of this, and then, with an encouragement to have fun and ‘get weird with it’ we began.
We had more options than just pen and paper. The facilitators brought their own copier/scanner with them, so library staff were able to experiment with creating patterns and shapes using objects we had to hand. Specifically, we had a large number of plastic bugs which we used to start thinking creatively about how we might want to communicate information about pests (attracted by all that food we ask you not to eat in the library).
Why do we have plastic bugs you ask? We have Kafka (and the library team’s sense of whimsy) to thank for that and they’ve been sitting in the office ever since awaiting use. Making cockroach-patterned paper probably wasn’t high on my list of things I expected to accomplish in my professional career, but I managed to turn out an adequate mini-zine with a clear and simple message: “do not eat in the library: it attracts pests”.
Whilst we spent a fair amount of time experimenting with the photocopier during the workshop, playing around with how placing and manipulating objects on the scanner bed can create interesting shapes and textures, the students in attendance favoured the collage approach, cutting from a selection of magazines supplied by the organisers and sticking to craft their zines. That’s the great thing about zines – there is no right or wrong way to go about it.
That’s the great thing about zines – there is no right or wrong way to go about it.
If you missed the workshop and are interested in learning more about the work Imperfect Bound do, you can follow them on Instagram @imperfectboundcollective. If you’d be interested in attending a workshop in College in the future, or have feedback or ideas for our plans to produce a printed guide to using the library, please get in touch with us directly by emailing library@queens.ox.ac.uk.
