Studying and stimulating a sense of community through co-productive zine-making in public libraries

Abstract

This paper reports on our ongoing experiences of using co-productive zine-making as a creative and participatory method in a research project on public libraries as social infrastructures. Engaging different audiences, including library management and staff, patrons and urban government authorities, the project aims to simultaneously study and stimulate a sense of community in public libraries. While many libraries already deploy zine-making programmes as a low-cost visitor activity, we use it as both a data collection and community-building tool. Co-productive zine-making offers opportunities for reflection and mutual understanding to foster education, exchange and encounter between different stakeholders. It challenges the traditional power dynamics of knowledge production in academia and beyond. Zine-making can act as a creative tool that pushes researchers to be more (self-)reflexive. Yet, despite these benefits, zine-making does not come without challenges, and therefore requires a specific researchers' skillset. This paper provides insight into both practical and ethical issues we encountered before, during and after the organisation of the first out of five zine-making workshops in our project, held with community librarians in Rotterdam.