History of the Collection
The OCAD U Zine Library was launched on November 14th, 2007 by artist Alicia Nauta, while she was a student of OCAD U's Printmaking program.
Alicia started the collection “to inspire people… educate and entertain” as well as “to make people realize anyone can make a zine.” She was hoping to create more personal connections between zine makers at OCAD U and within the library by allowing students access to “zines made by people they know, and opportunities to create their own work to be seen by other students.”[1] In addition to starting the collection, Alicia developed its subject categories and organized several events to promote and support the collection, including the first OCAD Zine Fair.
In 2009, the collection moved from the Dorothy H. Hoover Library to the newly opened Learning Zone, under the management of then Learning Zone Librarian, Victoria Sigurdson. Marta Chudolinska and Laine Gabel, then Library Reference interns at the OCAD U Library, worked with Alicia in her last year at OCAD to learn about the management of the collection so that Alicia's work could be carried forward after her graduation for many years to come. The work of developing a unique system for cataloguing this collection was developed by Laine Gabel and Marta Chudolinska, with support of student staff member Meghan Hers.
In 2010, Marta moved into the role of Learning Zone Librarian and has continued to expand the collection and its classification system and organize dynamic programming with the help of the OCAD U Zine Collective and Learning Zone staff. Marta and Victoria, collaborated with other Learning Zone and Visual Resources staff to bring the OCAD U Zine Library Catalogue online so that this incredible collection can be more accessible to our students, faculty, researchers and the general public.
The zine library catalogue is accessible online for students, faculty and internal staff on ArtStor's Shared Shelf platform. As of April 2017, the Zine Library catalog is also available to the public on Artstor Public Collections.
[1] Personal communication, May 28, 2009.
