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Text: Maytina
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Photos: Suzanne and Deb / Fall of Autumn
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Officially, Toronto has a zine library now. It doesn't have a home, and while that's a challenge it's also a neat effect at the same time because being mobile, the library is able to pack up and be at ziney events around the city. Suzanne and Deb are two of the three folks involved in this project and they did email interviews with me in June/06.
Who is involved in the project?
Suzanne: That would be myself, Patrick and Deb. I'm not sure whether they want to be credited by first and last name or just first so I'll keep it simple.
Deb: Me, Patrick and Suzanne- and all the wonderful zinesters who donated their work to us.
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What was it that took 'we should start a zine library in Toronto' to following it through and doing it?
Suzanne: I know for me it was a surprisingly quick process, going from thinking it was a cool idea and then getting really excited about it and posting on a message board to see if anyone else was into the idea... or if there was another Toronto zine resource I was overlooking. So I posted, Patrick replied explaining that he'd been through 'library school' and so had a certain amount of background and he and I got talking. We met at Canzine in October where I was tabling with a friend of mine who was also interested in the project but who, due to school and living in Brampton, has been unable to be active in the group.
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I met Deb that day while trying to collect zines and addresses for our mailing list and after trying to organize meetings with those who said they wanted to be involved for a month or two we had a solid meeting which five of us attended and where we started to make concrete goals and decided to focus on having a traveling library instead of dithering about space. Meeting other people as excited about this idea as me was, I think, the reason why it got beyond thinking 'wouldn't this be so cool?'
Deb: We had a ton of meetings and planned out where we would put the library (hence the idea of a traveling library because we have yet to find a permanent space.) We also thought that zine culture is a really important aspect to this work so we decided to come up with a workshop and hand out on how to make zines. We all met at CanZine in Sept. so its only now that we're ready to make workshops happen.
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Deb on planning
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'We also thought that zine culture is a really important aspect to this work so we decided to come up with a workshop and hand out on how to make zines.'
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What have been some of the challenges you've faced while getting this together?
Suzanne: Dithering about finding a location and trying to find a solid group have been the two biggest issues we've faced. The size of the group has fluctuated since the beginning, but while it's only three of us now we are all committed to seeing the project through. Finding space has been tough, which is why the collection is currently living in my basement. We considering having the library in a cafe of some sort for a while but didn't like the idea of visitors having to buy something in order to read zines. Finding a space that compliments our vision has been difficult, and we have yet to find the right home for our zines.
Deb: Time. We need time to do this work. Space. We need to store the library somewhere that its useful- like, not in our bedroom. But the collective aspect has run rather smoothly since we're on a google-groups thingy and Sue and Patrick are so easy to work with.
How many zines are in the collection right now?
Suzanne: Currently 300, but member of the committee who recently moved to Vancouver and is consequently no longer apart of the group has left behind a large number of zines which we're currently negotiating to pick up and add to the collection. We've also recently had several generous promises of donations that should put us closer to 400.
Deb: Over 300.
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You're mobile right now, when you find a spot to house the collection, are you going to take part of the collection to events, and stay mobile?
Suzanne: Our mobility has been fairly limited so far as we have found that zine-reading may not be as practical an activity as we had hoped it would be at certain events. One of our primary goals right now however is to create workshops and to be able to bring a portion of the collection to lend to schools and youth groups etc. where we would hope to be doing these workshops. I also doubt we'll ever be able to say no to an event if someone invites us, even if it is only a small portion of the collection that makes the trip.
Deb: That's the idea, since we don't need to take all of it to an event or workshop.
What kinds of workshops would you like to host for zinesters/zinesters to be?
Suzanne: With workshops our target group is youths who maybe haven't heard of zines or are generally unfamiliar with how they would go about making their own. Our desire is to give a bit of history about zines, talk about how and why we make them and to also give ideas about what to do with zines once they are made.
Deb: How to make zine and the culture of zines, of course.
Is there anything people reading this can do to help out?
Suzanne: Donate zines! Or better yet, give us a space for the collection! Failing that we would appreciate any and all ideas for places the library could live, events we could travel to or schools and youth groups that would be interested in having workshops done. Just get in touch and let us know you support the idea, everything is appreciated.
What's next for the zine library?
Suzanne: We're planning to have our first workshop this summer which will hopefully get us ready for the coming school year and potential workshops to be done in schools in the GTA. We're also following up on a potential spacing lead with an artist co-op that is working to transform the Tranzac Club. The fall will also see our presence at several tabled events like Word on the Street (fingers crossed - sharing space with Shameless Magazine) and Canzine once again. That and maybe a little world domination, who knows?
Deb: Getting on with the workshops and getting a home for the library. Also getting others involved in a real way. No work is done well in isolation.
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The Playlists
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Suzanne's Top 5 Zines
1. The Pleiades
2. Smelling Trees
3. Infiltration (particularly their TTC issue)
4. Broken Records
5. and the ones I make with kids at the summer camp I work at
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The Playlists
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Deb's Top 5 Zines
1. The Fence - Cheryl Dobinson
2. APEC (assholes, politicians, economists and cops)
3. Poerty for Guerrillas - Sabastian Rylie
4. Ten Reasons to Riot - Soysters
5. Thing Zine - Karen Darricades
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The Playlists
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Suzanne's Playlist
1. Elliott the Letter Ostrich - Knife Fight Baby (Get Stabbed, Get Stabbed)
2. Pants Yell! - New #4
3. The 32-Bit Handhelds - Flight of the Veritech Fighters
4. The Diskettes - Pop Pop Beat
5. Sinkcharmer - California's Gone
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The Playlists
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Deb's Playlist
1. Alice in Chains - Sunshine
2. Stevie Wonder - All is Fair in Love
3. The Cliks - SUV and Different Girl
4. anything by slater kinney
5. Outkast - Rosa Parks
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