This project is being undertaken while I am off work, suffering from chronic fatigue brought on by long-covid. I’m using it as a low-stakes project to focus my brain and stop it from racing out of control without exhausting me in the process. I tend to spend an hour or so each day scanning the zines or entering information about them into the spreadsheet, and when the urge strikes I tinker with the website.

Updates happen about twice a week, depending on my capacity. They are announced here, distributed by RSS and posted to Mastodon and Bluesky.

The website really should be taken as a sketch of how I see the final archive looking. It’s built from CSV exports from a Google spreadsheet, parsed by Jekyll into a static website, which in turn is dumped on Github’s free hosting. If you know anything about building database driven websites you’ll know this is laughable and not sustainable. But it’s within my capabilities right now and it entertains me, so that’s enough.

I see this as a multi-year project. There is a chance that I suddenly recover from my maladies and am able to engage with the wider world again, in which case I should probably stop archiving zines and go do that. But let’s assume for now that this is my life now.

Here is the plan as of 7 Sep 2024:

June - July 2024

  • Scanned the contents of ~250 zines.
  • Build the barebones of the website.

August - September 2024

  • Scan the covers of all the zines in the collection.
  • Enter data about the zines into the spreadsheet as they are scanned.
  • Exclude those which are clearly not zines.
  • Include those which might be zines or zine-adjacent if you squint. Hard decisions can be made later.

End result: all zines in the collection are on the spreadsheet with basic metadata and the website lists them with their covers.

October - November 2024

  • Go back through the zines updating the metadata. The taxonomy criteria evolved significantly as I’ve worked through them so the first 1,500 or so will not be up to standard.
  • Ensure the contributors for each zine are properly listed.
  • Double check everything for typos and errors.

End result: Every zine in the database has a cover, accurate metadata and a complete list of contributors.

December 2024

  • With the database complete, rework how zines, publishers and contributors are cross referenced.
  • Assign IDs to publishers and contributors so that additional information (short bios, current websites, etc) can be added.

End result: first stage complete!

2025 onwards

  • Formally announce the first stage of the project is complete.
  • Gauge the level of interest in what is admittedly a very niche activity.

  • Consider some kind of crowdfunding to help complete the project, especially if I’m not able to earn a living at this point.

  • Resume scanning the contents of every zine for posterity.
  • Consider photographing those zines which do not scan well (minis in particular).
  • Look into getting an A3 scanner to speed up scanning the A4 zines.

  • As contents are scanned, flesh out the database where needed.

  • Start writing up the history of this period and my personal reflections on living it through my 20s, with the idea of making a book (or book-shaped thing).

  • Start investigating the best way to turn the spreadsheet into a proper database that drives a proper website. Put a call out for help with this.

  • Make sure this is also available as an offline archive which can be downloaded and run locally. (CD-rom style!)

  • Side quest! I’d like to index the letters and reviews in the back of the zines as they are probably a good map of the networks that zine swam in, similar to the contributors shared across zines but probably different. This would probable work well using something like Obsidian to build one of those “digital gardens” all the kids are talking about this days.

August 2025

  • Take the archive (in digital form unless someone wants to lug the boxes from Birmingham to Oxford!) to Caption, the small press comics convention I used to sell zines at in the 90s. Maybe do a talk or something if there’s interest.

Late 2026 to early 2027

  • Contents of all zines should be scanned by now.
  • Contact the British Library about taking the physical zines for their archive.
  • Publish the “book” in whatever form it’s emerged.