Qzap Zine Archive

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Aug 3, 2024, 3:33:04 PM8/3/24

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The Queer Zine Archive Project (QZAP) is a Milwaukee-based community archive dedicated to preserving queer zines and queer zine culture. Part of the archive's mission is to make the collection accessible through digitizing these zines and making them publicly accessible in an online format. The archive has received zine donations from across the world.[1] QZAP has been noted by University of Milwaukie professor Joyce Latham as a powerful "response of the queer community to the history, and practice, of marginalization and disregard."[2]

The mission of the Queer Zine Archive Project (QZAP) is to establish a "living history" archive of past and present queer zines and to encourage current and emerging zine publishers to continue to create. In curating such a unique aspect of culture, we value a collectivist approach that respects the diversity of experiences that fall under the heading "queer."The primary function of QZAP is to provide a free on-line searchable database of the collection with links allowing users to view or download electronic copies of zines. By providing access to the historical canon of queer zines we hope to make them more accessible to diverse communities and reach wider audiences.

QZAP began when its founders digitized their personal collection of roughly 350 queer-punk zines and put them in an online database. Through donations, the collection has (as of July 2018) grown to over 2,500 zines, nearly 600 of which have been digitized and are freely accessible online. The physical collection is stored in filing cabinets in the founders' Milwaukee home.[1]

Milo Miller is one of the co-founders of QZAP. Milo prefers to be referred to by the pronoun "they." At the Riverwest flat, they showed off some of the zines in the collection, including one published in the 1990s by a group of rock music fans called the Gay Metal Society.

Miller says the Chicago-based group "a newsletter of guys who were super into metal, and they talk about going to big concerts and hanging out in the parking lot and smoking pot and picking up guys, just as much as a straight metalhead would do," they explain.

Wilde explains, "What started off as a desk in the corner of our dining room ended up with then two file cabinets, became four file cabinets, became five file cabinets. Imagine that in a 10-by-15 foot dining room."

Wilde says as the collection grew, the couple moved it to a vacant apartment downstairs. They renovated the space to include the archives, a study area and fold-out futon sleeping quarters. Wilde says visitors from all over the country have stayed there, helping to maintain the archive or doing research about the collection.

I am sick of articles and think pieces that tell us zines are back. The more I visit zine festivals, talk to zinesters, buy zines, and check out zine libraries, the more I realize that zines never left. Zines, and the people who make them, have grown, found new avenues to reach people, and continued to give voice to marginalized creators, just as they always have. They are also being referenced and studied in academic classrooms, and included in library collections to reach a variety of people.

I went to this organizing meeting and I met Chris. He had been a zine-maker, he was friends with Larry Bob who used to put out the zine Holy Tit-Clamps and also Queer Zine Explosion which was kind of like Fact Sheet Five for queer zines. Larry Bob introduced the two of us, and we super hit it off, like a house on fire.

One of the biggest issues we face is around getting permission to add work to the digital archive. Because zines are ephemeral and because a large part of our collection pre-dates the internet as we know it, it can be very challenging to track down creators to ask if we can include their old work in the collection.

To this end we absolutely TRY to get permission before uploading digitized zines. If we are unable to obtain it we tend to err on the side of Fair Use for educational purposes, and have a very liberal take-down policy. If a creator comes across their zines on QZAP and wants them removed we try to have them down with a few hours of being contacted.

You can peruse the incredible QZAP archive to connect with your queer ancestors and community, buy their wonderful swag (including issues of From the Punked Out Files of the Queer Zine Archive Project), and donate to help maintain the archive all at QZAP.org! Make sure to also keep an eye on Comics Academe for future zine library profiles in this series, as we dive deeper into the incredible world of zine librarianship.

In the definition cited in this research guide, zines are motivated by a desire to share knowledge and experiences of underrepresented communities. This is the mission of the Queer Zine Archive Project, a Milwaukee-based community archive dedicated to preserving queer zines and queer zine culture. Founded in a basement in 2003, the archive offers an intimate research experience--making it unique from institutional and academic archives.

The Queer Zine Archive Project (QZAP) is an online zine archive launched in November 2003. The project aims to preserve queer zines and make them available to other queers, researchers, historians, punks, and anyone else who has an interest in DIY publishing and underground queer communities.

The primary function of QZAP is to provide a free on-line searchable database of the collection with links allowing users to download electronic copies of zines. By providing access to the historical canon of queer zines they hope to make them more accessible to diverse communities and reach wider audiences.

Given these complexities, libraries and archives handle describing zines in all sorts of ways. The xZINECOREx schema provides a standard that can be used across institutions and by independent projects like QZAP. QZAP contributes metadata from its collection to the Zine Union Catalog, which aims to be a single place to search for zines across multiple libraries, archives, and independent collections. Because zines are ephemeral, this catalog is a great resource for scholars interested in the history of zines.

Lesbian Herstory Archives - Three boxes of zines by or about queer women, held in "the world's largest and oldest collection of materials about lesbians." The Archives also has a wide variety of alternative publications, including early women's periodicals from across the United States.

Lehman College Zine Library - The collection seeks to show " a unique perspective on the diversity, culture, and social fabric of the Bronx." The site notes that "any zine made by our students or alumni will be accepted...(regardless of where it was created or any connections to the Bronx)."

Queer Zine Archive Project (QZAP) - Founded in 2003, QZAP provides online access to hundreds of zines by and about queer people. This community-supported resource may be searched by decade, title, geographic location, or keyword. All zines uploaded to the site were digitized with the consent of their creators. Hundreds of additional print copies are archived at QZAP headquarters, located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The organization also hosts a series of invited zine residencies, to encourage research and facilitate engagement with the collection.

Independent Voices is an open access digital collection of alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals, drawn from the special collections of participating libraries. These periodicals were produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, the extreme right-wing press and alternative literary magazines during the latter half of the 20th century.

"Gay is Good": Digital Collections in LGBTQ U.S. History" Lisa N. Johnston. College and Research Libraries News. Vol. 80, no. 8 (2019) has a good list with excellent descriptions of the archives reproduced below.

Libraries and the LGBT Community Although a Wikipedia page, the section entitled "Incomplete List of LGBTQ Archives/Libraries/Special Collections" was started by a librarian. Some of the library webpages contain reading lists and suggestions of specific books to read and may be useful for those doing research or developing a course in LGBT Studies.