Libraries and the Reading Public in Twentieth-Century America

Meta-Radicalism: The Alternative Press by and for Activist Librarians

I nside the cavernous main reading room at the New York Public Library on 5th Avenue, away from the clamor of the surrounding streets, I began to open a dusty manila folder.1 I untied the surrounding string and looked down at the top item of the stack: the January 15, 1974, issue of Top Secret. This issue—and every other in the folder—appeared to consist of photocopies of lined notebook paper, bound by a single staple, now rusted at each top left corner. On the pages were reproductions of a handwritten text, inscribed in a sprawling but legible hand. Although Top Secret represents the tedious and dedicated work of a massive archival project, it could easily be mistaken for something far less professional or important, perhaps even the ranting of a fanatic. Top Secret was written by and for an alliance of librarians who were activists , if not fanatics. It brought together news and information to be shared among librarians committed to a cause that others found too difficult, too time-consuming, or just too utterly crazy to tackle: collecting alternative publications. Ever since R. Crumb’s baby buggy filled with Zap comics hit the streets of Haight-Ashbury, the struggle to keep the alternative press present and visible in library collections has been fought by radical librarians. Beginning in the 1960s, if not earlier, these activist librarians have been arguing about the importance of collecting, preserving, and sharing materials produced outside 217 Meta-Radicalism  The Alternative Press by and for Activist Librarians alycia sellie Where have all the flowers (and political leaflets, social protest pamphlets, movement literature, and fugitive materials) gone? —Richard Akeroyd and Russell Benedict, “A Directory of Ephemera Collections in a National Underground Network” the mainstream. Many have done so using the only outlet available to them— the alternative press. Alternatives As long as authors matter, ideas are urgent, and words want to run like wild horses, the world needs small, independent publishers. —Celeste West, “Roll Yr Own” Literature about the alternative press almost always begins with an investigation of the word “alternative.”2 One particular exploration by Chris Dodge notes the rejection within the word. Dodge importantly asks, “Alternative to What?,” and answers: “Alternative means real choice is involved; options, diversity . How much difference is there between Time and Newsweek? With nearly identical covers (Diana vs. Diana, Monica vs. Monica, ad nauseam), they might as well be called Tweedledum and Tweedledee.”3 Alternatives are DIY; they are made by “organizations which are involved with changing, freeing, enabling. . . . Their mission is communication, not commerce.” In recounting her experiences talking with independent publishers while putting together the index Alternatives in Print, Jackie Eubanks remembered the response of one small publisher in particular. When she asked about the price of his publication, he cried: “Charge? We don’t charge!” and then compromised: “Ok, you can put ‘Donation’ down as price. We wouldn’t want anybody who wanted it not to be able to get it.” Eubanks recorded that alternative publishers are “as committed to destroying profit” as large vendors are to making it.4 “ Alternative will mean materials produced by non-standard, non-establishment groups or individuals . . . oriented towards radical/independent politics and culture,” wrote James Danky in “The Acquisition of Alternative Materials.”5 Building on Danky’s definition, I will use “alternative” here as a broad term that covers many types of publications, all of which vary from mainstream models.6 Danky writes that while the term “alternative” “can be applied to ultra-conservative/right wing materials, the publications that I center on are from the far left.7 Here I will explore a small section of radical library publications and locate them within the overall world of alternative publishing, as well as within librarianship. My focus is serial publications that call for the inclusion of alternative materials in library collections. This is narrower than a study of the alternative press overall; I am looking only at radical publications made by and for North American librarians. Further, I am studying two specific eras of publication: 218 alycia sellie the radical “underground” press of the 1960s and 1970s and zines produced since the 1990s. Finally, in an effort to understand the wider success or failings of librarians as collectors of alternative materials, I will examine whether librarians have collected and preserved the alternative library literature created by their peers. Inside Activists and Meta-Radicals If...