The ABC No Rio Zine Library contains over twelve thousand publications. Our collection includes independent, underground and marginal publications on subjects such as music, culture, politics, personal experience and travel. We are most interested in zines addressing political and social issues. Our focus does not include poetry.

This project began in the Spring of 1998 when we rescued the Blackout Zine Library from a squat in the South Bronx which was to be evicted. Since then numerous individuals have donated their personal collections, and zine editors and publishers regularly send us issues. Our collection grows daily.

Zine Library hours vary. Check the calendar for schedule information.

Zine Editors–If you send us your zines please keep the following in mind:

Feel free to include your own capsule summary of your zine when you send it in.We like staples, so that the pages don’t fall out all over the floor.

We like dates, years, volume numbers, publishers and editors–anything to help tell us when and where a zine was printed. This also give the reader some sense of what the times were like WHEN the zine was made: zines done in the 1960s, for example, are very different than ones made in the 1980s.

We don’t need multiple copies, and we don’t sell zines.

Advice to new zinesters:

Look at a variety of zines before starting out on one of your own, to really take your time with the layout, and to think about how your zine might be different, depending on where you are in the world: does it have a sense of PLACE? Be specific and descriptive. If this is a political/class war type zine, please be as specific with your politics as you can. Just to let you know, there are a LOT of punk rock zines out there, so if you’re doing one, go the extra mile to make yours stand out.

Thank you, and cheers to those of you who have made our reading so interesting, and for fighting the world of corporate advertising!!!