GRAY LITERATURE TO ZINES:
THE POSSIBILITIES OF
ALTERNATE PUBLISHING

Gray Literature has been, for librarians, a term synonymous with all reading material that cannot be easily found, categorized, bought, borrowed, or sold. That is why it has been such a frustrating type of material to keep track of for patrons who may or may not want it. The main characteristics of gray literature have been documented through the years as: "rapid publication, variable formats, no public peer review, and no commercial source of general availability." (Carrol, p.5) The specific types of gray literature have been traditionally manuals of any kind whether they are company policies put out through a human resources office or an instructional manual to put together an appliance. It has also been pamphlets, leaflets, technical reports, or small publications that have no categorizing characteristics. (Auger, p.3) These broad categories and even broader definitions have made the realm of gray literature a sort of scavenger hunt for anyone wanting a specific subject of non-commercially produced work. And why would anyone want to look for this stuff? Gray literature has grown in popularity mostly by the sheer multitude of what is out in the world and when considering the growth of publishing and the difficulties in trying to get published commercially more people search for viable alternatives to write for their own readerships.

This concept is not that new. The offspring of commercial magazines, zines, have been unconventionally writing to their own audiences for years. Historically, zines started out as self-published magazines devoted to whatever popular genre of fiction that came out. Devotees to a science fiction series, comic books, or television shows would create these small magazines to extend the appreciation of their subjects to their readers. The construction of zines has always been simple; staple-bound, Xerox copied, and illustrations hand drawn or pirated from other sources like commercial magazines. (Smith, p.89)

Zine readerships have grown following this simplicity by starting out with a small base of friends and as more people read it more copies were produced. The practice of writing, producing, and distributing zines flies in the face of conventional publishing in nearly every aspect from the homemade design to the leniency on copyright. The most distinguishing characteristic of the zine is the intended goal of both producer and reader: a community. Zines, at the heart of their concept, create their own communities of shared interest. Unlike commercial magazines, the subject matter is not created out of the need to sell more copies. Zines operate with a specific community in mind and one that is usually on the fringe of what is most popular. Zines by their nature come to define the characteristics of gray literature. By not being widely available to the general public and targeting a specific community of share interests, zines have offered an alternate route of publishing to the world of information sharing.

Alternate Routes on the Web

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Created by: Michael Ruzicka
Last Update: May 2, 2003