Celebrating 50 Years Spotlight: Little Magazines

SPECIAL COLLECTIONS: THE STORY CONTINUES

When City Librarian William Holman organized the Library’s special collections into one department in 1964, librarians in the Literature, Philosophy & Religion Department were doing their part by actively acquiring books and little magazines representing the Beat and San Francisco Renaissance writers. As Special Collections Librarian Jack Coll reported in January 1966, “The Library is seeking to collect this material as a record of intellectual life within the city.” In an effort to move beyond standard ordering procedures, librarians in both departments scoured  book dealers’ catalogues, visited antiquarian and independent book shops (City Lights and The Tenth Muse, amongst others), and pored over alternative press reading lists. The Special Collections Department acquired the published works of local writers and poets, while the Literature Department went a step further assembling a core collection of forty little magazines (avant-garde poetry magazines). 

The collection opened in 1967 with titles including: Wild Dog, Avalanche, Despite Everything, Magdalene Syndrome Gazette, Black Dialogue, Beatitude, Hollow Orange, Soulbook, Kayak, Change, the Movement, and the Journal for the Protection of All Beings. By the early 1980s, the collection had grown to 500 titles.

Zines (self-published, independent, mostly handmade and done for the love of it) first made their appearance in the collection in 1991, giving new energy to the Little Maga/Zine Collection. A proposal to transfer the collection to Special Collections due to its literary and historical research value was approved in 1993, with the reinvigorated collection now receiving full archival preservation. Soon the collection would be cataloged for complete public access; cataloging still continues, as does the acquisition of zines and little magazines.

The Little Maga/Zine Collection documents the underground/alternative press of the San Francisco Bay Area, and its influence on the cultural, literary, and political life of San Francisco. Little magazines representing almost every literary movement from the 1940s onward, political little mags, and self-published zines on a wide variety of topics form the core collection, which now numbers over 1,200 titles (more than 4,000 issues). A growing collection of print reference materials, electronic media, and ephemera adds critical documentation on the history and study of little magazines and zines.

The Little Maga/Zine Collection may be found in the Book Arts & Special Collections Center, open to the public without appointment. Our new hours are Monday: 10am-6pm; Tuesday-Thursday: 9am-8pm; Friday: 12 noon-6pm; Saturday: 10am-6pm; and Sunday: 12 noon-5pm. Celebrate our department’s 50^th anniversary by visiting us on the Sixth Floor, where we can show you the many treasures of Special Collections.