GREENFIELD — The Greenfield Public Library wants your zines.
The library is hosting a zine contest as part of its 2026 Adult Summer Reading Program, “Return to Camp Readmore.”
Zines, short for magazine or fanzine, are small-circulation, self-published booklets that are usually produced cheaply, often photocopied and stapled by hand. The Greenfield Public Library has been building its zine collection since 2023 and now has more than 300 zines that can be checked out.
“We started a zine collection in the library in 2023 when we moved to the new building, and it’s just grown really quickly,” Library Technical Services Coordinator Jesse Cole said. “The original goal was to have 30 zines in the collection, and now we’re at over 300, and we’ve done a lot of programming alongside it.”
Alongside the zine collection, the library also has a Zine Club that meets every other month to talk about zines, share work and learn new techniques. To further supplement the programming and collection and get more people interested, particularly those who participate in the Summer Reading Program, the library decided to host a zine contest.
The Summer Reading Program has included crafts, activities, and reading badges aimed at getting people off their screens and into a book or zine. The Adult Summer Reading Program is geared toward anyone ages 13 and up.
“One of the reasons for doing the contest is we’re trying to integrate zines a little bit more with our summer reading for adults,” Cole said.
Submissions are due to the library’s main desk by Saturday, Aug. 22, and will be judged by library staff in four categories: creativity/originality, visual appeal, quality of writing and design/format. Cole said the goal is to evaluate submissions as they come in throughout the summer so that when the deadline passes, staff do not have too many to review and can more easily choose a winner.
Cole said zines can be submitted in any size or style, and can be about anything the creator wants to focus on, although he believes it would be special if there were a few zines talking about Greenfield or the library.
“I would love to see people talking about Greenfield and this community specifically, or something related to the library and summer reading would be cool,” Cole said. “Our hope is just trying to get people engaged in summer reading and adult programming in a new way, so having zines that reflect that would be exciting.”
Head of Borrower Services Jeremiah Rood added that the variety of subjects across the library’s zine collection, and hopefully the variety of submissions, are part of what makes zines cool.
“Zines are great because they give you a snapshot of a culture and a community at any particular moment in time,” Rood said. “In 20 years we’ll be able to look back at a rather pivotal moment in American history, and we’ll be able to see what were people writing about and thinking about a variety of topics.”
He said magazines and books that are printed traditionally by big publishing houses can be limited in topic by what the publisher thinks people care about or should care about, but the self-published aspect of zines ensures that all ideas can be published.
“They’re just somebody getting excited about something and then getting motivated enough to tell other people about it,” Rood said.
Cole said the library has held workshops in the makerspace for people to come work on their zines for the contest, and he encourages people to come to other crafting sessions.
The winning zine will be added to the library’s zine collection, and the creator will receive a Amazon Kindle.
For more information about the contest, including a list of rules, visit bit.ly/zinecontest.
