Zines can be a productive site for research in a wide variety of fields ranging from education to history to media studies. However, because of their unique nature, zines present certain copyright and ethical concerns. Zines in UMD collections are open for research use, however copyrights are generally not transferred to the University of Maryland and all rights remain with the creators and rights holders. Individual users are responsible for determining the copyright status of an item and observing the laws of copyright and educational fair use guidelines.
Moreover, because zines are often produced by marginalized creators there are additional ethical considerations. The Zine Librarians' Code of Ethics gives the following guidance on zine usage:
"There are many different uses of zines for which one should seek permission. For students and researchers who want to use excerpts or even images in an academic paper that is not going to be published in print or online, a citation is usually enough. If one wants to publish an image from a zine in print or online, we recommend obtaining permission from authors. There are some gray areas or casual uses for which zinesters may not usually request advance permission, for instance, posting a picture from a zine or a zine cover on social media or in a blog, usually with a short credit including the title of the zine and/or the author. Copying an entire zine, even for personal use, is generally not a respectful practice unless the creator specifies permission or produces a zine under an appropriate Creative Commons license."
When extensively using a zine or zines from a certain community in research, it is best practice to try to contact zine makers whenever possible.
Properly citing zines ensures that the creator is properly attributed credit for their creation. Cite this Zine, created by the Barnard University Zine Library, provides guidance on proper zine citations.
Zines may differ from other holdings in a library or archive due to their unique forms and widely varied topics. Because of this, it is useful to use a variety of search terms when searching for zines. Selected search terms and subject headings are listed below:
Fan magazines.
Fan magazines--Periodicals.
Fanzines.
Punk culture--Periodicals.
Riot grrrl movement--Periodicals.
Self-publishing.
Underground press publications--United States.
Zines.
Zines–Periodicals.
Zines--United States--Periodicals.
