Nicki Saluba and Kelsey Smith are putting zines in check. Literally. Both women are library employees with a bit of an indie twist. These admitted zinesters made it their personal mission this year to uproot underground publications and bring them to light by starting a cataloged zine collection at the Timberland Library. They have done so successfully, and alphabetically, for that matter.



Saluba and Smith’s edgy efforts bring the fringe literature genre to a diverse community of people who might not otherwise have been introduced to zines. After getting organizational approval, securing funding, and ironing out a new cataloging and referencing system, their zine dream became a reality. Now library patrons can peruse and check out nearly 140 different catalogued zine titles, sourced heavily from independent zine publishers and creators throughout the Northwest and beyond.



 Although the zine collection at Timberland is a pilot program, its growing popularity with patrons is evident. “The zine program has been well received here. Currently, over one-third of the zine collection is already checked out,” says Smith, a reference librarian at Timberland Library. “So far, the response is great. This program may eventually expand to some other libraries.”



Pronounced zeens, from the word magazines, these handmade, self-published creations often incorporate illustration, photography, and text — all in a cut-and-paste format, commonly photo-copied, with hand stapling or twine binding the booklets together. Many readers are delighted to find the subject matter just as raw. Contents of zines range from the personal to the political, from art to activism, from sexual abuse to subcultures, from comics to organics. Predominantly, zines contain stories, theorizing, tips, essays, drawings, poems, music reviews, obsessions, confessions, reflections and rants.



As a librarian, Smith feels it is important to recognize how such fringe perspectives and extreme points of view found in this type of literature have the power to change cultures of complacency.



“Zines bring whole new perspectives in thought from their writers. You can’t find these perspectives in books. These perspectives are extreme. In zines, you read people reflecting on gender in unique ways. You find people reflecting on mental health issues and political theories in challenging ways. People are writing about music in a way that is so much more personal. There is an immediateness to zines that you don’t find in most published books. Zines really come from the gut,” explains Smith.



Saluba, an Evergreen State College student and intern in library assistance at Timberland, publishes her own zine. Her publication, Crescent City Stories, is a zine that addresses her personal experience volunteering in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. It contains photos, illustrations and text. Thus far, she’s printed approximately 300 of them. “I love to write. And I love the idea of being able to write completely uncensored. With a zine, you can do that.”



In an age of big-box bookstores, On Demand television, and the World Wide Web, can a handheld, homemade, roughhewn zine fly its pages in the face of slick retail marketing and advanced technology?  Kelsey Smith thinks so. She sees people creating zines in spite of technology and commercialism. “People have been talking for years about zines dying. What I have observed is that people want to get their ideas out there more than ever, and it’s definitely moved into e-zines and blogs. But, zines created as an object and an art form and a lifestyle … that passion makes the ones being produced that much better,” says Smith. “There is quite a nice anti-consumer quality to them.”



For those interested in connecting with other zinesters in the South Sound, Saluba is hosting The Zine Gathering on Sunday, June 1 from 4-6:30 p.m. at the Olympia Free School, 610 Columbia St. The event is free and open to anyone with an interest in zines. You don’t have to have made one to come. During the gathering, there will be a potluck dinner, zine readings by authors, and zine trading. For information, contact Nicki Saluba at: olympiazines@gmail.com.



[Timberland Library, 313 Eighth Ave. S.E., Olympia, 360.352.0595]