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When a Barnard librarian named Jenna Freedman drafted the proposal for the Barnard College Zine Library in 2003, there was no shortage of questions. But none of them came from her employers, who needed little convincing that these examples of self-published, alternative literature merited inclusion in the stacks. After all, there were already highly successful examples of zine libraries at Duke University and the New York Public Library. Freedman's quandaries tended toward the practical. Where does the bar code go? Where might one affix the card for stamping due dates? Does the toner from photocopiers, used to publish many zines, decompose faster than normal ink? And most pressing, Freedman says, is what to do with the stuff sometimes enclosed in zines: the audio cassette, tea bag, or condom.

There is no preexisting librarians' code pertaining to how one should handle a document that includes a free prophylactic; Freedman stows the entire zine, ephemera and all, along with a rigid, acid-free cardboard backing in a plastic sleeve designed for comic books.

Freedman is part of a generation that grew up with zines during their heyday in the 1990s. Now she is part of an emerging community of professionally trained librarians who are trying to make zines a part of the modern academic library system. It is a community, Freedman says, that faces a difficult question: How do libraries -- institutions that by nature require a strict, stately style of micromanagement -- assimilate these self-published and occasionally category-defying dispatches from the cultural hinterlands?

"I think because we're all making it up, everyone is trying something and we'll see what the best practice is," Freedman explains. "Zinesters are not thinking about libraries when they write them" -- rarely do they contain copyright statements, dates of publication, or even reliable contact information.

Interest in zines is part of a broader move spearheaded by older activists like Sanford Berman, author and self-proclaimed "radical librarian," and James Danky, a decorated librarian at the Wisconsin Historical Society, to encourage the acquisition of "alternative materials" -- everything from regional, underground newspapers and self-published pamphlets to publisher catalogs and Internet newsletters. The very presence of these items exposes gaps in the holdings of a library and the flaws of current cataloging orthodoxies.

"The whole reason it's important to have zines in the library," Freedman argues, "is because a lot of the things zines are about are things that are not in the library." Or, in the case of zines like Library Bonnet and Zine Librarian Zine, they might take wry looks at the institutions themselves.

There had long been community centers, bookstores, and festivals sympathetic to zine culture, but an attempt to catalog them in a systematic way first began during the mid-1990s. Many of these collections came about by accident, as the result of unsolicited donations. The active, library-driven search for zines began in earnest in the early-2000s, most notably at the Salt Lake City Public Library. More recently, academic libraries have become involved. Currently about 20 colleges and universities boast zine collections, many of which are overseen by former zinesters turned librarians.

In 2004, Julie Bartel, who assembled the Salt Lake City collection, published a resource for fellow librarians titled "From A to Zine: Building a Winning Zine Collection in Your Library." Bartel's book offered the basics for starting an archive, but as the search for and preservation of zines became more professional, so too have the librarians' concerns.

Some of these issues seem fairly mundane to those on the "customer" side of the reference desk. But for a librarian, thoughtful and thorough categorization ensures that an item will find its destined reader. For example, is a zine a serial or a monograph? (Related: can it be a serial if it only comes out at the zinester's whim?)

The answer to the serial vs. monograph question determines where a given zine appears in the catalog, and how detailed an abstract accompanies its listing. Consider Rollerderby, a popular zine by Lisa Carver that is available at Barnard. If categorized as a serial, its inscrutable title and author line reveal little about its contents. If each issue is categorized as an individual monograph, then a catalog search would reveal that Issue 24 promises coverage of four somewhat disparate topics: "Cat Power, capitalism, T.S. Eliot and cats."

This dovetails with a decades-old movement called "radical cataloging," which represents an effort to rethink how an institution like the Library of Congress determines the searchable and supposedly neutral subject headings one can assign a given text. While this seems innocuous enough, most zines defy the largely outdated language of preexistent headings and run the risk of invisibility during standard, heading-driven archive searches.

Freedman maintains a tally of examples detailing the disconnect between zines and Library of Congress terminology. Most offer reminders of how the peripheral, personal-is-political vantage of zines might challenge everyday language or culture. Zines by people who have been raped are automatically assigned to the heading "Rape Victims," even though the zine authors' preferred term, "rape survivor," suggests a productive and empowered post-traumatic existence.

Freedman recounts a more lighthearted example of a zine titled Boobs, Boobs the Musical Fruit that she wanted to place under the heading, "Having Large Breasts." Instead, she had to settle for the Library of Congress' preferred heading: "Breasts -- Social Aspects."

"My hope is that the more rules and subject headings libraries can apply to these materials, the more we are able to preserve and promote alternatives and the often-overlooked elements of modern life," said Alycia Sellie, founder of the Madison Zine Fest and a recent graduate of library school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The consolidation of the zine librarian community might not force the reform of the Library of Congress, but it has created a network of exchange and cooperation that mirrors the do-it-yourself ethos of the zines themselves.

Despite these efforts to streamline and standardize, old habits can die hard -- after all, many of these librarians spent their teen years slaving away on their own zines. The Barnard Zine Library's generous website offers a resource titled "Cite This Zine." Clicking on the link leads to a document: A riot of black-and-white rectangles, free-floating lines of typewritten text, images swiped from old magazine advertisements. Included are instructions for cut-and-paste assembly. It is a tip sheet on the proper citation of zines in academic papers -- itself in the form of a zine.

Hua Hsu lives and writes in New York. In the fall, he will become an assistant professor of English at Vassar College.