The Skye Zine library is a communal zine project that shares zines and mini publications. It began in 2020 as a collection of roadside, by the till and bus stop boxes dispersed across Skye and Lochalsh. These boxes served as a small but mighty way to have conversations across distances and to share creativity during COVID-19. What continues is a growing collection of more than 200 zines from all over the world, with topics ranging from Gaelic, cooking, visual art, music, and local history.
Now housed in our Portree Office the Zine Library shares alternative voices, worlds, ideas and perspectives – gathering stories, skills, knowledge and actions of local people, pooling and mapping knowledge from around Skye, Raasay, Lochalsh and elsewhere.
We welcome folk to contribute to and browse our collection. Get in touch to chat anything zine or publishing with katharine@atlasarts.org.uk
What is a zine?
Zines are non-commercial, independent publications that can be made by anyone. Often using DIY methods, many zines start by creating a handmade design which is then photocopied and shared with others.
Collections Policy
We collect so we can share and open up access to the zines we hold, the nature of zine making as DIY, alternative, radical and punk sits well with the values we want to shout about. It is a fun, responsive, collaborative piece of the work that ATLAS does.
We are particularly keen to collect zines made within or with a connection to Skye, Raasay,Lochalsh, and the Scottish Highlands and Islands. We welcome submissions from folk everywhere who feel their zine connects with Skye, Raasay and Lochalsh ATLAS’ work, or people and things happening here.
We operate predominantly as a reference library and occasionally run workshops around the zine library collection. We do not sell zines but welcome folk to drop in for a browse and contribute their own zines
We are open to many voices and points of view, if we decide we cannot house a zine for any reason we will be transparent and open with you in our reasoning but reserve the right to refuse a zine.
Should you wish to have your zine removed from our collection at any time please contact our Publishing & Programme Coordinator katharine@atlasarts.org.uk. We will make every reasonable effort to carry out your request.
You can also let us know if there is a zine you think we should hold in the library by writing to us. We have a small purchasing budget so we can take a look on a case-by-case basis.
As we have limited space please only send a few copies of any zines you are contributing.
How to borrow from and visit the Library
The growing library is open to all and holds a collection of over 200 zines, you are welcome to come in and browse at the office or request a digital copy to borrow or arrange a loan for a short period of time.
Only a few of the zines are digitised but we are hoping to grow this collection and make it available soon.
Other ways to be involved
Occasionally we have workshops and events around the collection so keep an eye out for these on our socials. We are always interested in hearing from people who make zines and are interested in running events that ATLAS could host, if this is you then reach out to katharine@atlasarts.org.uk
Access
Our office is in Portree and open 10-6pm throughout the week, it is best to call ahead as we are quite often out and about at events and sometimes work from home. The office access guide is here.
If you cannot make it into our office we can often arrange digital versions or photocopies of zines and post these out to you (in most cases we would ask for a small donation towards postage and printing costs on a pay-what-you-can basis).
Our Accessions and Permissions form is available as a hardcopy too or you can request an ATLAS member of staff to fill it out on your behalf.
The Zine library is occasionally housed in other venues and is part of events happening in the area, keep an eye on our Social Media for these events and feel free to contact us to request a visit or invite us to be part of an event you are hosting.
