“You had to be in-the-know to know about them,” Stephen Duncombe, a professor of media and culture at New York University, told OK Whatever. “You had to know the cool record store. You had to know the person at the punk show who was handing them out.”

That’s no longer the case, and zines are easier to acquire than ever before. You can find them in both boutique and mainstream stores, at annual zine festivals, on college campuses, and in road-tripping Astro Vans. There’s even a day of the year dedicated to them. (It’s July 21st.)

Public libraries are also getting in on the zine-love and a large number are adding them to their collections. There are now around two dozen public libraries with zine sections nationwide in both rural and urban areas, including New York City, San Diego, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Denver, Austin, Los Angeles, Portland, Minneapolis, Baltimore, St. Louis, Jacksonville, and Cleveland.

“Zines in public libraries are a growing trend,” Agatha Burstein, a librarian at Olympia Timberland Library in Washington, said. “There’s a resurgence of interest in them. It’s helping foster a whole new community of zine makers and readers that might not have been there before.”

Jenna Freedman, an Associate Director of Communications at Barnard College who is also the school’s zine librarian, has also noticed an uptick in the amount of public libraries that are adding zines to their shelves. Compared to previous years, Freedman said she was “dazzled by the number of librarians” who have attended the last few annual Zine Librarians (Un)Conferences, which was first started in Seattle in 2009.

The Los Angeles Public Library has been particularly gung-ho in adding zine sections to their branches. You can now find them in six libraries across the city, including in Baldwin Hills, Echo Park, Koreatown, and Boyle Heights. Outside of Boston, the main branch of Somerville Public Library has been stocking its shelves with zines and other “small press” works for the more than a year.

“I think there’s a growing recognition at libraries that zines are a legit cultural form, created by people who have things to share,” Tim Devin, a librarian at Somerville Public Library, remarked. “And I think there’s a relatively new view that by not collecting zines, you’re being biased against a type of book.”

Zines are an easy sell to public libraries because they are cheap and not difficult to acquire. They’re also great excuses to throw events and reach out to readers. Burstein hosts a monthly zine club at the Olympia Timberland Library and runs an Instagram page for its zine section. They also spread interest by visiting college classes and teaching students how to make them. Those who complete the project can donate their zines to Burstein who displays them in the library.