Got space for thousands of zines? The Papercut Zine Library—which lends an unusual collection of 7,000 zines, indie books, periodicals, and audio/visual materials in addition to hosting community events—is looking for a new home in the Boston/Cambridge area. The collective-run, free lending library lost its space in Cambridge’s Democracy Center on August 15. It had operated there since May 2005.

As outlined on the collective’s Myspace page, Papercut is looking for at least 180 square feet of space in an accessible area. Joining an existing community/arts/organizing space is an option, and so is renting low-cost commercial space. There’s just one absolute: “that the freedom to make decisions about the library’s internal operation stay within our collective. That is, we are not interested in another library absorbing our collective if it means the collective will not be involved.”

Anyone who has ideas or tips should get in touch with Papercut.

Source: Papercut Zine Library

(Thanks, BoingBoing.)

Image by gruntzooki, licensed under Creative Commons.

Alt Wire is a morning digest of links and information collected and explained by a different guest blogger most weekdays. Today's guest is William Patrick Tandy, creator and editor of Smile, Hon, You're in Baltimore! (a Best Zine nominee for the 2009 Utne Independent Press Awards ).  We asked him for five links and here's what he came up with. 

Baltimore has never done a particularly good job marketing itself.  The Powers That Be in the nation’s 20^th largest metropolitan area strive for that “big city” recognition among out-of-towners who are otherwise abandoned to negotiate for themselves the gap between John Waters and David Simon – each of whom, like the world’s religions, might possess kernels of the truth, though never its entirety.  The following subjects – lesser known beyond the city limits – are a mere sampling of the scuffed heritage and earthy character that still captivate me, a Jersey boy, nearly 10 years after my arrival…

A. Aubrey Bodine: From 1920 until his death in 1970, legendary Baltimore Sun photographer A. Aubrey Bodine documented life in Baltimore and across Maryland in the pictorialist style while simultaneously exhibiting his work and winning competitions the world over.  Today, Bodine’s daughter, Jennifer, maintains an extensive, ever-growing online database of his work, offering reproductions for sale.

The Johnny Eck Museum: Billed as the “Half-Man”, Baltimore native son Johnny Eck made a name for himself early in life through appearances on the sideshow circuit and, most notably, in director Tod Browning’s 1931 classic Freaks.  In later years, Eck became a renowned painter of window screens, a common practice in his East Baltimore neighborhood since the early 1900s.

Baltimore John Watch: Outraged by the area’s illicit sex trade (and attendant criminal activity), a handful of bold (and tech-savvy) residents of Baltimore’s Pigtown neighborhood launched Baltimore John Watch in 2008.  Contributors document the often brazen activities (which frequently go down – no pun intended – within feet of the elementary school, during school hours), going so far as to post photographs of the perpetrators, their vehicles and plate numbers.

Killduffs.com: Curator Thomas Paul maintains this online repository devoted primarily to collecting the histories and images of old movie houses in Baltimore and across Maryland, most of which have been razed, long ago converted for alternative use or simply left to rot.  Paul’s brother, Adam, operates the equally engrossing Baltimore Ghosts: Unsung Monuments of the Monumental City, which delves even further into such esoteric history as streetcars, advertising, railroad lines, streetlights and more.

Baltimore Crime Beat: In his nearly 20 years with The Baltimore Sun, veteran crime reporter Peter Hermann has run the journalistic gamut from covering the city’s police department to serving as the Sun’s Middle East correspondent.  At a time when the Fourth Estate more closely resembles the House of Usher, Hermann’s knowing which questions to ask (and of whom) as well as his insight and good old-fashioned legwork render this daily blog an indispensable portal into the city’s criminal element, its victims and the men and women of law enforcement who stand between them.

Guns and Potato Chips: Former bounty hunter Michael Papantonakis stands accused of selling guns over the counter at the Utz potato chip stall where he has worked since his old man bought the place 39 years ago.  “I love the Utz stand down there!” a friend of mine (and former employee in the Mayor’s Office) said in disbelief when I brought the story to her attention.  “Indeed,” I replied, “and according to the charging documents, so do the Bloods, the Crips and the Angels.”  Smile, hon, you’re in Baltimore!

Bio: William Patrick Tandy began publishing Smile, Hon, You’re in Baltimore! under his Eight-Stone Press imprint shortly after fleeing the Garden State for less-oppressive climes in 2000.  From the harbor to the hills, the submission-based Smile, Hon collects the tales of those on whom Mobtown has left her indelible mark: polished, professional essays; barroom sermons delivered from the sanctity of a favorite stool, the poet’s fleeting sentiment captured in both word and snapshot – a slice of Baltimore as told by Baltimore, all presented with the time-honored, DIY accessibility of a limited-run, handcrafted zine.  Learn more at http://www.eightstonepress.com.

Previous Alt Wire Guests:   Alycia Sellie, Davy Rothbart, Roger White, Dan Sinker, Phil Yu, Matt Novak,  Jason Marsh, David LaBounty, Jen Angel, Will Braun, Regan Hofmann, Josh Breitbart, Andrew Lam,  Jessica Valenti, Jessica Hoffmann, Noah Scalin, Rinku Sen, Paddy Johnson, Melissa Mcewan,  Fatemeh Fakhraie , Joe Biel, Anne Elizabeth Moore 

Image by Davida Gypsy Breier.

Alt Wire is a morning digest of links and information collected and explained by a different guest blogger every weekday. Today's guest is zine librarian Alycia Sellie. We asked her for five links and here's what she came up with. 

Zine World:  Zine World is the most well-known print source for reviews and information about zines, and it's web presence is formidable as well with a comprehensive list of links for everything from postal rates, upcoming events and zine news.

Queer Zine Archive Project: QZAP is a free digital zine archive that strives to "preserve queer zines and make them available to other queers, researchers, historians, punks, and anyone else who has an interest DIY publishing and underground queer communities." This site is beautifully designed, perpetually growing with new titles, extremely inspiring, and an amazing historical record.

Zine Wiki: The amazing thing about Zine Wiki is that the phlethora of information about zines already there is just a start; the fantastic thing is that anyone can add and edit (meta)data about their zine, or add themselves to the extensive list of zinesters!

We Make Zines Ning: For more meta and social networking (when your stapling arm gets too tired), the We Make Zines Ning is a place (that isn't those other sites that we all know too well) to promote your zine, find out about zine events and even friend your local zine librarian.

Nobody Cares about your Stupid Zine Podcast: Here's a new zine project for your ears, ipods and RSS readers: Alex Wrekk (of Stolen Sharpie Revolution) and Mark Parker (Independent Publishing Resource Center librarian and creator of zinethug.com) team together to interview zinesters far and wide, and I am looking forward to the next installment!

Bio: Alycia Sellie is an academic art librarian living in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn. After participating in the first ever Zine Librarians (un)Conference in Seattle, Washington, she is busy planning the NYC Zine Fest to be held at the Brooklyn Lyceum in June 2009, and can be reached at http://alycia.brokenja.ws/.

Previous Alt Wire Guests:   Davy Rothbart, Roger White, Dan Sinker, Phil Yu, Matt Novak,  Jason Marsh, David LaBounty, Jen Angel, Will Braun, Regan Hofmann, Josh Breitbart, Andrew Lam,  Jessica Valenti, Jessica Hoffmann, Noah Scalin, Rinku Sen, Paddy Johnson, Melissa Mcewan,  Fatemeh Fakhraie , Joe Biel, Anne Elizabeth Moore 

Alt Wire is a morning digest of links and information collected and explained by a different guest blogger every weekday. Today's guest is Joe Biel of  Microcosm Publishing. Check back for tomorrow's guest: Fatemeh Fakhraie of Muslimah Media Watch. 

The Prelinger Archives: I experience nothing but awe and wonder when I comb Prelinger Internet Archive. Whether I'm looking for open-source or copyright-expired video to sample or a hilariously outdated instructional film to watch, this is the place.

Punks and Vegetable Oil: Few things inspire me more than da punx taking their approach to things beyond music. Fossil Free Fuel is a brilliant example of exactly what I think of when I extrapolate the ideals that I had in my youth. It blows my mind that the best source for waste vegetable oil diesel system parts and conversion kits would be these knowledgeable punks.

Dicentra Collective: Portland kind of has everything. Dicentra Collective does is a resource for people who need all kinds of emotional support, sexual assualt resources, zines about physical disabilities, or a seemingly catch-all community directory of related projects. They put on frequent discussion events about all manner of the most uncomfortable topics you can imagine. Amazing.

Edwin's Instructables: My friend Edwin has at least 365 project ideas each year so there's been talk of putting together his "Idea-A-Day" calendar. In the meantime, and in tribute to Edwin, you can check out Instructables, where you can learn to make and do all manner of cool things.

Politically Unsophisticated and Pretty Neat: Even as I get older there is a part of me that respects what Plan-it X Records does. It's a pretty simple concept: all full-length CDs are $5 and all people involved are interested in building community together; releasing music with people that you get along with as human beings, not just as a business relationship. You can call it "politically unsophisticated" but shit, that's a pretty neat thing.

We Make Zines: There have been numerous attempts to create an active online zine community for as long as there's been a graphical internet but Krissy Durden's We Make Zines is the most successful in a long time. Daily updates on threads and plenty of international folks sharing information and most importantly zines!

Zinewiki: If I had enough time in the day to be obsessive, I would compulsively update entries on Zinewiki, the Wikipedia solely about zines and their makers. What started a few years back as a way to create a Wikipedia page about Alex Wrekk (deemed "non-notable" on standard Wikipedia) became a gigantic girth of information.

If it's a blog, it's the only one that I read: I met Jonathan Maus when he organized a bike craft swap meet back in 2005. He was smiley, energetic, and friendly. I like that. Within no time he had taken his bike enthusiasm to the nth degree with Bike Portland, charting virtually everything cycle-related in our Rose City. Then he added Elly Blue, who gives him a real run for his money in all of the aforementioned departments. If it's a blog, it's the only one that I read.
 
Honestly, Gmail: This is going to seem like irony or sarcasm, but honestly Gmail is the only website I look at on 90% of the days I use the internet. On a purely literal level, all of my most inspirational offerings come via Gmail: new opportunities, writing gigs, people who want to play my talkies at their school, and people who ask questions and share information that I might be interested in. Most days, I could really do without the rest of the internet and the way that it changed how information is broadcast.

BIO: Joe Biel isn't as grumpy or bitter as he used to be and no longer feels the need to tell journalists why he thinks their paper is crappy. He founded Microcosm Publishing in 1996 and is working on getting Cantankorous Titles, a new DVD label off the ground this year. He has made a number of short and feature length talkies, including the forthcoming feature "If It Ain't Cheap, It Ain't Punk: Fourteen Years of Plan-it X Records," and is the author of Make a Zine: When Words & Graphics Collide and is midway through his next book for Garrett County Press about folks who have grown up with punk and applied the ethics, approach, and ideals to things other than music.

Previous Alt Wire guest:  Anne Elizabeth Moore  

Image by Microcosm

Utne Reader librarian Danielle Maestretti shares the highlights (and occasional lowlights) of what’s landing in our library each week in ‘From the Stacks.’ 

Utne’s library is abuzz with a steady flow of 1,300 magazines, newsletters, journals, weeklies, zines, and other lively dispatches from the cultural front that are rarely found at big-box bookstores, or newsstands.

Featured in this week's video:

- Brazil's "Lambe Lambe" tradition, profiled in Creative Review 

- A Virginia Quarterly Review report on depression and suicide rates in Cuba 

- The Punk Rock Fun Time Activity Book from ECW Press 

- Make a Zine by Microcosm Publishing 

- The Terrapin turtles of Chesapeake Quarterly 

There’s no gloomier time in our library than when we peel open the pages of a new arrival eager to dig into dispatches from some obscure cultural front, only to find the equivalent of a death notice. Such was the case when Youth Truth—the “official zine” of Americans for a Society Free from Age Restrictions (ASFAR)—came in the mail last week.

This feisty publication has been a fierce defender of the rights of young people, routinely calling on government and society to afford youth the rights and responsibilities granted more aged citizens. In its pages, one could find disturbing chronicles of censorship in schools, news of “gulag” camps for troubled youth, and insightful breakdowns of health and education policies. That's just to name a few of the issues that, if they are covered by mainstream media at all, rarely include the perspective of those darned kids.

Youth Truth’s parent organization is taking a break from zine publishing to focus on its activism. Editor in chief Susan Wishnetsky announces in the latest issue (Winter 2007-2008): “Youth Truth may return, once ASFAR gets its house in order, but we do not expect to publish any more new issues in 2008.”

Here’s hoping 2009 brings better news.

Skin Deep is the latest zine in William P. Tandy’s excellent Smile, Hon, You’re in Baltimore! series. As befits a Baltimore-based outfit, Smile, Hon zines can lead to cringing or contemplation with themed issues on crime, vermin, and scars. Skin Deep is no exception: It treats tattoos in ink-inspired personal essays, poetry, and sidebars of tattooer interviews that are sometimes amusing, sometimes stomach-turning. 

The zine is full of instructive tidbits about tattoo enthusiasts, including perspectives from a number of tattooed men and women who write about the spiritual significance of their designs. (I always took the Bible’s “your body is a temple” to mean no epidermal ink injections. Not a universal interpretation, apparently.) One tattooed gentleman sports angels and “iconic hands clasped in prayer.” Ian Andrew Erdman went for a bear tattoo, to remind him of strength and helpfulness. “Having been a part of several mission trips,” Erdman writes, “I have witnessed firsthand the good that people can do when they band together to help toward a common goal.” 

Not everyone who gets a tattoo chooses a saintly image, of course. For those seeking a more controversial design, the right tattooer is key. Josh Griffin, a Baltimore Tattoo Museum employee, refuses to do certain designs, like “rebel flags. I don’t care if it’s for the Confederacy or whatever—I don’t mess with that.” Other tattooers are less rigid. “In the end, you have to meet three points,” says tattooer Bill Stevenson. “You have to be over 18, you have to have some money, and you have to want to get tattooed.”

Most of the tattooers want to be seen as craftsmen, not as moral enforcers or even as artists. “They’ll be like, ‘I’m a tattooer, not an artist,’” says Dave Drell of the Baltimore Tattoo Museum. “‘I don’t go home and listen to Vivaldi and drink wine and paint things,’ you know?”