Community Story - Glasgow Zine Library

Today we are in Scotland for perhaps one of the more unusual community organisations that we’ve helped support – the Glasgow Zine Library! Our Head of Communications Luke Upton, sat down with Saskia McCracken, the Development Coordinator at the library, to introduce what they do, why they do it, the role of grants and more. Enjoy!

Luke Upton (LU): Thanks for the time today, for our uninitiated readers, what is a Zine?

Saskia McCracken (S McC): Thanks for having us! A zine is a self-made, self-published magazine, and it can be on any topic, from art, fan fiction, or pop culture to nature or social justice. They can include illustrations, collage, photos, or anything you like really! They’re often produced on a very low budget, using library printers and photocopiers. Zine making is an alternative, DIY approach to publishing which is accessible, fun, creative, and can be collaborative and bring people together around through mutual interests. We have a collection of over 2,000 zines in our library, which visitors can read, and we also teach zine making skills through our community arts programme.

LU: What’s the story behind the Glasgow Zine Library? And what kind of things will you be doing for your community?

S McC: Glasgow Zine Library  ( @GlasgowZineLib ) is a self-publishing library and community arts space in South Glasgow. We began as Glasgow Zine Fest in 2013, a festival celebrating DIY culture, when we were volunteer run. Five years ago, we established the library and this year we celebrated our 10^th festival anniversary, with an exhibition, zine fair, screenings, creative workshops and more!

Our mission is to increase arts access and participation, provide opportunities for skill-sharing, and support the creative development of our South Glasgow community. We do this through our year-round community arts programme, library services, free arts resources, artistic development and youth training opportunities, and volunteer programme. Thousands of visitors from all over come to visit our zine collection, read, attend arts events, and participate in Glasgow Zine Fest. All our activities are free or pay-what-you-can, to ensure affordability, and our access provision includes BSL, captioning and audio description.

Our Public Arts Programme includes talks and workshops on literature, arts and crafts, zine-making, and more, our Community Led Programme enables local creatives to use our space and resources for free for arts activities, and our Volunteer Programme supports 50 volunteers to gain skills, experience, confidence, and employability, as library, events, and archives assistants. We also have a youth programme supporting young people to learn creative skills. Our events are predominantly led by community partners, by and for those underrepresented in the arts and focus on building community connection and creative confidence!

LU: Thanks, and the 2023 Glasgow Zine Fest took place last month, how was that?

S McC: Our tenth anniversary festival was great! We celebrated across two days in July with an exhibition about the history of zine culture in Scotland, screenings of community-made short films, creative events including writing and making workshops, a stand-up comedy gig, and of course, a zine fair, where makers got together to sell their zines. We had over 1000 visitors – a record number, including locals and visitors from abroad, and the feedback we got was positive – people had a great time!

LU: You’ve received a Magic Little Grant from Localgiving and People’s Postcode Lottery, how important was this? And what has it been spent on?

S McC: The arts should be accessible to all, and this grant helped make a big difference in terms of making our work more accessible to the community. We recently relocated from a small, inaccessible space to a larger community arts space in Govanhill. A big thanks to our Magic Little Grant from Localgiving and People’s Postcode Lottery, we were able to make the new space fully wheelchair accessible, widening doorways, levelling floors, and creating an accessible bathroom. This means more people can now access our arts space, participate in creative activities, volunteer, and generally enjoy being part of the creative community in Glasgow. It’s been really important to us, so thanks again!

LU: What would increase funding enable you to do?

S McC: More funding is always welcome. The cost-of-living crisis has meant that, as an organisation, our costs have gone up, and so have those for the artists and community we support. We pay fair rates to artists and staff, which have gone up with inflation (as has the cost of everything else!). More funding would enable us to continue to offer affordable, accessible, and exciting arts activities and resources to our community, while paying fair rates to our creative partners, and covering volunteer expenses. It would help us to support our community to enjoy zines, zine making, DIY culture, and creativity together. 

LU: Fantastic! Looking forward to tracking your progress. Keep up the great work!

Find out more about the Glasgow Zine Library by clicking here.