As befits a journal for art libraries I shall begin this opinion piece with Max Ernst's quote on exhibiting Dada: ‘What's the matter with everyone, wanting to make a museum piece out of Dada? Dada was a bomb…can you imagine anyone…wanting to collect the pieces, sticking it together and displaying it?’

In 2013, as the dissertation component of an MA Library and Information Studies course at University College London, I carried out a selective study of UK zine libraries and collections. Case studies of both ‘institutional’ collections that were part of established libraries like London College of Communication Library (University of the Arts London) and the British Library, and ‘independent’ collections such as Salford Zine Library, 56a Infoshop and the Edinburgh Fanzine archive were carried out to draw attention to issues around collection, care and accessibility of zine collections. As much of the literature around zine collections in libraries at that time was focused on the USA, it was important to draw attention to what was happening in the UK. This article summarizes the findings of my dissertation, and the developments in zine libraries and librarianship since I wrote it, as zine collections have become more popular and a growing field in the UK.

This article presents a practice-based account of collection development related to zines in the British Library. Rather than making the case for the collecting of zines, it aims to describe the process of collection building in a specific time and place, so that researchers have a better understanding of why certain resources are offered to them and others are not, and to share experiences with other librarians with zine collections. Zines form an element of the cultural memory of activists and cultural creators, and for researchers studying them it would seem useful to make transparent the motivations, methods and limitations of collection building. Librarians in the USA have written about their collecting practices for some time, for instance at Barnard College1 and New York Public Library2, there has been less written about the practices of UK libraries. The article aims to make a contribution as a case study alongside accounts of collection development in a range of other libraries with zine collections, and it is written primarily from my own perspective as a curator in Contemporary British Collections since 2015, focusing on current practice, with some reference to earlier collecting.

The London College of Communication (LCC) Zine Collection was founded in July 2009 and now contains more than 4,000 zines. It is the most heavily used special collection at LCC Library. This article outlines the history and development of the collection, its uses in teaching, learning and research, and its value for widening access to, and representing diversity in an academic library environment.

What is the importance of a zines collection to a contemporary visual arts library? What is their significance as research resources? This article explores the Stuart Hall Library zines collection, its history, management and use, and its role the context of the wider collection. It examines the collection's strengths and areas for development, including cataloguing and visibility. Key titles in the collection are described, and some of the themes and subjects covered. Local working practices and zine related activities are also discussed.

Salford Zine Library is a volunteer-run, not-for-profit collection of approximately 2,000 zines and other self-published materials housed at Nexus Art Café in Manchester. The makeup of the collection, the way it has been built and its comparatively less restrictive access arrangements make it a unique resource in the UK. Over the last seven years the zine library has grown from a small personal collection to a place that attracts zine enthusiasts from around the UK and beyond.

UK and Ireland Zine Librarians began as a small JiscMail list created to share resources, skills, and advice for all zine librarians regardless of professional status or job title. While our US counterparts had already made great strides regarding acquisitions, cataloguing, and copyright guidance, UK and Irish zine libraries were still grappling with some of the more basic elements and finding ways to adapt these ideas to our own collections. How can institutional librarians and DIY community grassroots collections learn from each other? And can we establish a best practice of zine librarianship while remaining true to the DIY ethos of zines?