San Antonio Public Library hosted the third annual San Anto Zine Fest in October. In 2018, the fest welcomed more than 1,000 attendees. Photo: Mari Hernandez

On the Zine Scene

January 2, 2020

“He was really excited about them,” says Kristina Gomez, MPL events and programming librarian. “I was really happy to see that he participated.” Though usually small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, zines pack a punch as an empowering form of personal and community expression. Small and self-published, zines are handmade publications … Continue reading On the Zine Scene



At Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh's Civic Data Zine Camp, young adults learned data literacy concepts by presenting statistical narratives and visualizations in a handmade zine format. Photo: Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh

Engaging Civic-Minded Teens

March 1, 2018

But what about data literacy? Did librarians tackle charts and graphs as much as headlines? And what about teens, who are often overlooked in the context of civic and voter preparedness? Increasingly, librarians are addressing these questions by bringing statistical education and opportunities to young adults—and they’re using massive collections of open civic datasets to … Continue reading Engaging Civic-Minded Teens


Attendees make one-page zines with open source materials at MozFest, October 28–29 in London.

MozFest 2016: Comics, Zines, and Open Images

November 7, 2016

I had spent the week leading up to the conference with my colleagues Nate Hill (executive director, Metropolitan New York Library Council) and Matthew Kopel (research and development librarian, Central New York Library Resources Council) preparing our remarks on library, archive, and museum contributions to open image collections, the various options for Creative Commons licenses, and … Continue reading MozFest 2016: Comics, Zines, and Open Images