"The Politics of Small: Strategies and Considerations in Zine Preservation" Anna Leventhal

As the “zine boom” of the early 1990’s recedes further and further into history, and public interest in zines becomes increasingly institutionalized, the question of zine preservation arises. Just as a preservation strategy for a new media artwork must take into account not only the work’s material components but some notion of what constitutes the artwork itself (that is to say, some attempt to theorize the work’s “meaning” and how best to conserve it), zine preservation is not only a matter of holding onto the paper, toner and binding that make up the majority of zines, but to consider issues of access, circulation, and institutionalization with regard to keeping the work viable. This study considers some of the strategies involved in preserving zines, and how these strategies contribute to a working definition of that category itself.

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Anna Leventhal is in her second year of the Communications Master’s program at McGill. She has been involved in several independent media initiatives, and is one of the founders of Montreal’s Bibliograph/e Zine Library (www.bibliograph.ca). Her current research involves public access television, gossip, and other forms of discourse circulation.