Melton Zine Library

The Melton Gallery Zine Library is one of Oklahoma’s first permanent zine collections and the University of Central Oklahoma’s first permanent zine library. The Max Chambers Library at UCO has made the zine library catalog searchable through the research database. Visit the Melton zine library catalog.

The zine library is open to the public and available during regular gallery hours: Monday–Wednesday from noon-5 p.m., Thursday from noon-7:30 p.m., and Friday by appointment.
Our gallery staff can do zine workshops and presentations! Schedule a class visit or reserve the library for your group by emailing us at meltongallery@uco.edu.

A zine is an independently published book that is typically inexpensively made and often hand-made. The word "zine" comes from the word "Fanzine" which was first popularized in the 1930s by fans of the Science Fiction genre who wrote spin-offs of their favorite stories and called them fan magazines, fanzines for short. Since then, this art form has been at the center of many social and political movements due to the power of self-publishing. When writers, artists, activists, and makers create and distribute their own zines, they bypass the gatekeepers of the publishing industry and provide valuable content from diverse perspectives that we would otherwise not have access to.

According to a 2019 study by Lee and Low Books entitled Diversity in Publishing: 11% of books in 2018 were written by people of color. 89% were written by white writers. The publishing industry is 76% white, 74% identify as cis-gendered women, 81% identify as heterosexual, 89% are non-disabled.

The Melton Zine Library was supported in part by the Oklahoma Arts Council, which receives support from the State of Oklahoma and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Lee and Low Books. “Where is the Diversity in Publishing? The 2019 Diversity BASELINE Survey Results.” Lee & Low Blog, 10 Feb. 2020. Read the full post on the Lee & Low Blog here.