Crazy Belated Zine Project Update!

Hello, faithful residency-blog readers!

I apologize for the total lack of posts relating to the progress of the project, but I think we've been focusing our efforts on making the project happen and neglecting the documentation.

NO LONGER!

Below is a photo of the newly installed space. Laura sewed a lovely colored banner, I printed up some dangly signs with shimmery red ink, we added a whole slew of donated zines, and TA-DA! A zine library is born! We didn't receive as much artistic freedom as our little artist minds had dreampt 

(We aren't supposed to refer to the project using the words "library" or "collection," and we always must include the word "student," but sometimes I stumble on that.)

Plans now include:

An evening get-together with cookies to function as a belated "opening reception" 

Thinking about next term and a future location for the zine collection 

Working on another library project that includes a zine made by me and an unofficial tour of the library

More soon!

I love you!

MICROCOSM

MICROCOSM JUST GAVE US ONE COPY OF EVERYTHING THEY HAVE EVER PUBLISHED.

THAT IS A LOT OF ZINES!!

But now here is my dilemma: people are definitely going to steal these book-like, not-affixed-with-a-censor publications. they're new and shiny and they sell them in bookstores for twelve dollars. I mean, we want people to have access to them, right? But we don't want the first twenty people to come in and take everything, right? 

IDEAS IDEAS, HELP HELP! COMMENT, COMMENT!

thanks guys.

meeting about art wall

So I met with Bill LePore, the chair of the Art Department, and I think I caught him on a bad day. I arrived early to the meeting and from the chairs in the waiting area could hear him sceraming obscenities into the phone. The receptionist actually told me, flat out, "It's not a good day."

Either way. I explained to him the situation in the Library where they are interested in giving that wall to the Art Dept. but with narrow guidelines for hardware, etc etc. He referred me to Jenene Nagy, his newly hired Gallery Director. He said if she's into taking on the responsibility of the wall, he'd allow her to. He wasn't really getting what I kept saying about creating a student position or student group to oversee and curate the wall.

Meeting with higher-ups...

On another note, I've been getting submissions in the mail from kind zine donors! Laura is making a banner this weekend, we've turned in the necessary forms, and next week we'll start installing the zine library! This weekend I'm going to work on making a sort of identity for the project, labels and signs and tags and things.

EXCITING THINGS ARE HAPPENING!

Since my last post, there's been a lot of progress.

Last Monday during our meeting with Kim, she became very enthusiastic about one idea that suggested a zine exchange in the library, which would function as a sort of alternative information exchange with (hopefully) more pleasant aesthetics than the institutional fluorescent lights and linoleum floors in the library building. She suggested the third floor information slots (see photo in previous post to understand what I mean by "information slots"), which are in a high-traffic area and near the library's special collection of Dark Horse comic books. (Zines and comics, kind of related?) I wrote a proposal and sent it her way, and now we're waiting for final approval from the head librarian.

In the meantime, I figured I'd start spreading the word that we're seeking submissions for the project, and JEEZ I got lots of positive feedback and assistance from the zine and art community in Portland. The IPRC (Independent Publishing Resource Center) send the Call for Submissions out to their 1000+ mailing list contacts, and the communications director for RACC (Regional Arts and Culture Council) posted it on the organization's website! I have about a dozen promises of zines that people are sending to my house or leaving for me at the IPRC. The Portland Zine Symposium people also expressed some interest, though nothing concrete yet. Some girls handed me five copies of their zine yesterday, asking if we were going to have an opening reception. Woah?

Part of me is super excited that this project is going to be completely possible and successful, while another part of me wonders if this is really a needed addition to the library, with so many resources already existing in Portland. Zines are very important to people in Portland, and I wonder if anyone who happens upon our makeshift library-within-a-library is going to be surprised or feel like we're offering a unique service. 

I suppose the way to counter this worry of the project turning out like any other old zine library (are we spoiled in Portland?! maybe!) is to work more on making zines for the library about interesting things I've discovered in starting to ask questions of the people in it. Laura and I decided to have one library-related featured zine at all times, and by making publications that are specific to our "department" we can make this project more unique and more oriented towards the LIBRARY and not just alternative media.

Ideas about Library Zines to be made this term:

-A single interview or a series of interviews with librarians at PSU on the topics of their lives or their specialty

-A collection of stories from students who work in the library, reshelving (the only student position)

-A photo essay (though in poor, xeroxed quality!) on the hidden parts of the library

Any more ideas, dudes? Any feedback so far on the project itself?

a little project

On Monday I installed a guerrilla-style zine display in the fifth floor information cubbies. These cubbies are currently unused, and I took them over with a zine I made about my grandfather.

My grandfather, Norman Alexander, was an Associate Librarian at PSU from 1962 to 1966. He didn't actually work in the Millar Library, as it was built in 1966, but from what I can tell from his papers, he had a lot to do in the planning of the new building and its features.

He often made speeches, and liked to insert jokes occasionally to keep people interested. This weekend I spent time at my aunt's house sifting through some of his papers, and discovered a pile of notes he'd typed on the backs of discarded card catalog cards. The zine is a collection of these, with a picture of him, pensive, on the front.

Putting them in the library in a way serves to reinstall his presence in an institution in which he was very active decades ago. I'm excited for the personal ties I have to this library to encourage me to invest more of myself in the projects I'll undertake.

fly er

last night i made a poster for an event that is coming up at the library.at our meeting yesterday with the librarian she mentioned needing help with a certain (boring-sounding) aspect of an upcoming Sierra Leone exhibition and after we declined, i decided to help in a way she didn't even realize she needed: a poster!

meeting with kim

today we met with kim st. claire.
it was an interesting experience. there was very little discussion, which i wasn't happy about. there was also a concession on our part, as she was most interested in one of the ideas we were less enthusiastic about. oh well! we'll pour our hearts into it nonetheless, and i think there's a lot of potential in the space they're going to give us.