2013 Chapters (Layout Features)

Cutter and Paste: A DIY Guide for Catalogers Who Don’t Know About Zines and Zine
Librarians Who Don't Know About Cataloging

Freedman, Jenna; Kauffman, Rhonda

The subtitle of the book containing this chapter being Library and Information Skills in Social Justice Movements and Beyond, this essay is about informing and empowering library workers with subject expertise in zines (or another special collections area) to do their own cataloging. DIY (do it yourself) is an ethos inherent in the anarchopunk community that produces many of the zines housed in the Barnard Zine Library. Being able to do it yourself, allows a person to take a more active role in activities others are more passive about—healthcare, home projects, crafts, and cooking, so why not cataloging? As a reference librarian, co-author Jenna Freedman could conceive and initiate a collection of zines in her library, but initially she had to turn over the cataloging to someone who had expertise in original cataloging, but no particular knowledge of or interest in zines. Eventually Freedman wore down her colleagues, requested training and then continued learning on her own and with the help of special collections catalogers and zinester-turned-Cataloging/Metadata Librarian Rhonda Kauffman, co-author of this chapter. Kauffman was fluent in both cataloging and zine culture and greatly informed the practice this chapter details.