Glasgow Zine Library and the protection of DIY arts

Tucked away in Govanhill, lies a hub of creativity and community action in Glasgow. With its yellow exterior and bustling interior, your eye can’t help but be drawn to the Glasgow Zine Library as you pass.

“There’s something really exciting about just having a space to say whatever you want,” says the library’s director, LD, and this is exactly what they provide to creative minds across Glasgow - a place where they can come together to create, put on events and exchange ideas.

Zines have been around for a long time. While they’re widely known as being a staple of the punk movement in the 70s, they were created by sci-fi fans and date back to the 30s.

LD explains: “They’re kind of the last vestige we have of anonymity. There’s like no fingerprints on them. If you make a zine and you don’t put your name on it no one knows who you are, and that’s beautiful. There’s no cloud, there’s no metadata on that. It’s paper.” This is exactly what draws so many to create zines in the first place, they provide people with an accessible medium to express themselves without having to worry about judgement from others.

While at art school LD created many zines, but found that they were often “frowned upon'' as an artistic medium. Instead of being discouraged.

LD found inspiration in this, “it just made me think about the ways in which we really gatekeep culture and the ways in which we gatekeep art and creativity and this idea that everything that you might want to do is behind a paywall or there’s some kind of requisite skill that you have to have to be able to do it”.

The Glasgow Zine library is inspired by the punk attitude of zine making, rebelling against these ideas and instead providing accessibility and encouraging creativity.

LD started the Glasgow Zine Festival as a solo project in 2014, and it is now a year-round production leading to the annual takeover of the CCA’s theatre. It was the first zine fest, however, that birthed the zine library.

“I had 300-something zines that were just like in my living room.” says LD, describing the aftermath of that weekend, “And so I started to wonder what it would be like, if there could be a place, magically, where I can house the zine collection, people can come and read them, but we can also be running this programme of really exciting events”.

The library prides itself on being a place that provides others with strong foundations to create their own projects.

“We’ve been afforded a certain amount of trust, you know, by so many funders and we’re able to then provide commissions and placements and internships and groups.” explains LD, “ I think we’re a place where a lot of people cut their teeth and learn how to facilitate, learn how to give a workshop, learn how to run a reading group”. From film screenings to a queer ecologies reading group, Unnature, there’s always something exciting taking place.

Having moved location recently, the library currently sits on Cathcart road, right in the heart of southside’s Queens Park area. As is the case for so many community projects, funding for space will always be an issue, with other projects such as the Glasgow Autonomous Space having recently shut their doors for good. After the Scottish Government’s recent u-turn on their investment of £6.6 million into arts funding, it’s becoming more and more difficult for places such as the zine library to continue providing for the community.

Scotland currently ranks 28th out of 34 European countries in their arts funding per capita, but even with the £100 million pledged by First Minister Humza Yousaf to go towards arts funding in Scotland within the next 5 years, there’s really no guarantee that independent organisations such as Glasgow Zine Library will see any of it.

LD says: “When people talk about funding for the arts, they’re also not talking about here, they’re talking about people who already have a ton of funding, they’re talking about ballets, they’re talking about orchestras”. They go on to describe the misconception that “if you love the work you’re just gonna keep doing it for no money and that’s how we’re gonna see a lot of working class artists leaving the arts”.

The future of the Glasgow Zine Library hinges on stable funding. With their small staff only reaching the national average salary last year, eight years since the project first started, their focus now is stability and longevity. However LD has ambitious plans for the future.

LD says: “I always talk about the zine library being a tree, and instead of growing more and more branches, we need to grow our roots further and further down, to be more stable so a gust of wind isn’t gonna blow us over”.

While the funding for creative arts may hang in the balance, there is no doubt that LD and their team’s hard work has paid off to create an integral part of the creative community, with roots firmly entwined in the foundations of Glasgow’s DIY arts scene.