By Temporary Services with Tim Devin, featuring interviews with: Tim Devin (Somerville Public Library). Angi Brzycki & Ziba Pérez (Los Angeles Public Library), Alicia Tate (Multnomah Public Library) and Alina Josan (Free Library of Philadelphia)
Chicago, IL, Fort Wayne, IN, Temporary Services, 2026
Pages: 44
Dimensions: 5.5 in X 8.5 in
Cover: Soft
Binding: Staple-bound
Process: Digital
Color: Full color
Edition size: 1120
ISBN: 978-1-967089-03-1

At last, a new Temporary Services booklet, this time created in coordination with our longtime librarian and publishing pal Tim Devin! After focusing on booksellers that support self-published materials in our last booklet in this ongoing series that sprung from our initial Self-Reliance Library publication and project, this time we've interviewed public librarians from institutions that support collecting zines. Unsurprisingly, most of those librarians are zine-makers themselves. Here's the introduction to the booklet:

This booklet builds upon five previous publications: Self-Reliance Library, What Problems Can Artist Publishers Solve?, Book Waste Book, Artist Publishers Reflect on Book Waste, and Booksellers Reflect on Self-Publishing. As with most of the other booklets in this series, the cover design was inspired by the Foxfire oral history publications about the traditions, crafts, and self-sufficient living methods of Appalachian people. 

This publication grew out of conversations with our friend Tim Devin, a librarian as well as a zine publisher whose work we have distributed for many years through our Half Letter Press webstore. Tim participated in What Problems Can Artist Publishers Solve? Collaborating with him on something longer felt overdue. We started the publication by interviewing Tim over email in June 2026 and then generated ideas for interview subjects and questions together for the remainder of the booklet. The other interviews were conducted over email in July and August.

Temporary Services has a history of being included in college and university artist book collections and museum libraries, public libraries, as well as more informal libraries created by other kinds of art spaces with zine collections and artist book archives. All libraries are vulnerable under fascism, but scrutiny of public libraries that receive state and federal funding is particularly high. Given the hurdles for access posed by some of these collections, that we like but that are less public, and to support institutions that are particularly under threat during the political climate we’re making this in, we decided to spotlight public libraries.  

Zines are having a moment lately­—culturally and politically. In June 2026, the librarian and zine champion, Violet B. Fox, published Zines Are Back!: The Perennial Reemergence of the Zine Scene. It’s described as “[A] collection of headlines featuring all the cliché ‘zines aren’t dead’ stories that you’ve grown accustomed to (or resentful of).” She has been selling copies and donating all of the proceeds to support the Prairieland Defendants, eight ICE protesters in Texas who have been handed 30-100 year prison sentences, with one getting a 30 year sentence for obstructing the investigation by moving a box of anti-fascist zines after a protest. 

Zines and self-published materials are abundant in political work and increasingly common in culture at large. It is appropriate and vital that public libraries should care about them and circulate them like other forms of physical media. This collection provides detailed reflections from public librarians in different parts of the US that value, include, and support zines at their institutions. There are many more people doing this work, and others who are starting to embrace having a zine collection at the library. We hope that hearing from these librarians helps others, as well as zine publishers, develop and refine their library work and—for zine makers—their relationships with these institutions.