It's wonderful that many historical zines and related publications have been digitized and made widely available. There are a couple points to make about this, however:
(1) Not all zinesters are ok with having their zines digitized and uploaded on the Open Internet. Similarly, some zinesters are not supportive of zines being collected by authoritative institutions like libraries, colleges and universities, and museums. Each of the collections listed in this guide has its own policies and guidelines for digitizing. Institutions or projects should remove material online or in print if the creator/zinester requests the removal.
(2) When zines are digitized, they usually lose their original formatting. Software such as issuu can be used to create a booklet with pages that can be virtually turned. Usually, though, zine pages are just scanned and the zine is turned into a PDF file of single-column pages. (Booklets have two columns.) This is the trade off for being able to view the publication in the digital format.
(3) Mini zines are zines made on one piece of 8.5 x 11 paper. The form of this zine is compromised when viewed on the Internet. Half of it will be upside down! However, anyone can download and print such a zine. The trick is to know how to fold and cut it. Here's an example of a mini zine: Random Things I See on the Streets of Bushwick, Brooklyn That Kinda Make Sense? by Daniel Fishel, from the Quarantine Public Library: The only issue with this zine is having enough color ink to print it!
