Ep 12: Civic Media Center with JoJo Sacks

Thanks for joining us for another episode of Patrons & Partnerships, presented by the Library Partnership Branch of the Alachua County Library District.

 Today we have the second half of our interview with JoJo Sacks, the Coordinator of the Civic Media Center, who spoke with us to discuss the history of the Civic Media Center, the services they were able to provide the Gainesville community during the pandemic, and both the Stetson Kennedy Library and the Travis Fristoe Zine Library.

This interview has been split into two parts. The first half of the interview was posted on September 9th and can be found here. 

Visit the CMC's website here. For volunteer and donation information, visit their Get Involved page, or find them on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.

Visit the Alachua County Library District website to browse our collection and to find other resources and services offered at your favorite, local library!

You can view a transcript of this podcast on ACLD's YouTube Channel.

Transcript

0:00

Hey! Thanks for joining us for another episode of the Library Partnership's podcast, Patrons & Partnerships. Our guest today is Jojo Sacks, the coordinator of the Civic Media Center. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. The first half was posted on September 9th, and can be found anywhere you listen to our podcast.[music]

Eleanore: 0:34

I've used the CMC zine library before, and I know you have an extensive library that was donated by an individual. Could you talk a little bit more about that?

JoJo: 0:45

Yeah. So we have a very significant book collection and a zine collection. And we also have lots of archives with different periodicals going back very, very far in time. But we have over 10,000 books. A lot of those books were donated by Stetson Kennedy, who was an organizer in Florida and is very well known for his infiltration and work with the Ku Klux Klan. And in his passing, we received so many amazing things from him and his family. But we also received a significant collection of books from Jack Price. And then in terms of the zines, I believe that we have the largest zine library in the southeast. It's very extensive. There's lots of topics. There's personal zones, or perzines. There's topics like prisons, queer and LGBTQ zines. There's abortion and holistic medicine and herbal medicine, and a million other topics. And Travis Bristow, who was a member of counterculture in the area, a very amazing person who started working on that collection. And our collection is actually named after Travis, who took his life way before I got involved with the CMC but is known to be such a figure in like, zine stuff. It's, it's really cool to see how lots of people engage with the zines, whether they are doing research, like academic research, and they're curious if we have something, or just for fun. Like, it's definitely been something that in the past, we've had programming around, we’ve had, like, zine making nights. Or certain volunteers will curate a collection of zines for - maybe for Pride Month, or Black History Month, or something else. And they pull such like a great curation out of the collection. So I'm hoping once we reopen, that we can create some more programming around them, and highlight some of the really amazing stuff we got in the collection.

Eleanore: 2:51

The CMC does have the largest zine library that I've seen in person.

JoJo: 2:55

I think, also what's been cool is just like to see how folks are making zines of their own. And when they see the collection, like, just kind of feel inspired to take it back to like, the DIY days and away from the Canva infographics. And yeah, like we're working on our printer right now. So hopefully, we will be able to do like a copy - you know, the amazing style of the cut and paste and using the copy machine to create zines. I think, you know, the history of like, propaganda and movement art all kind of conflate into sharing of resources,- into access, like high access material, as well as like, Eleanore: Mhmm.- creativity and how to simplify things.

Jojo: 3:42

Like, you can fit it on six pages. Eleanore: Yeah.

JoJo: 3:45

And I think that also the connection between how there's such like, a history of like, punk through zines, and then also politics through zines. Eleanore: Yeah. And movement, there's just like such a strong connection between all of those things that makes - the whole point of zines is that they are accessible, and that they're not what maybe other things in our library could represent. Whether they be like lofty academic language that are hard to understand for the normal person, or, you know - like, mass media, like - the whole point of I think the CMC’s founding was questioning media, questioning things that are told to us, and I'm sure we have some books in the, in the space that might be representative of that kind of media. But I think the way it exists in context with so many other things is really important.

Eleanore: 4:35

It just seems really fitting that the CMC would have such a large zine library considering how zines are situated in that whole culture.

JoJo: 4:42

It's also really special that all of that is happening in the middle of Northern Florida. [laughs] The culture of organizing and, you know, radical folks in Gainesville is so rich, it's been here for a while, it's not new, and I think that probably has something to do with being a university town. But you know, a lot of the ills of what we face here are due to the fact that it is a university town. So it's kind of this interesting balance that we as Gainesvillians walk the line on.

Eleanore: 5:12

Yeah, like the students are the ones providing all the labor for this, the radical help that the CMC provides, while at the same time the student presence pushes down wages and causes a lot of the issues that the CMC strives to fix. It's an interesting situation. JoJo: Definitely. Is there anything else you would like to talk about today?

JoJo: 5:32

All of that stuff sounded cool. I'm sure - I don't want to give too much content. [laughs] Yeah, no. I could talk about the CMC for hours - it's kind of like, it just happens like that! [laughs]

Eleanore: 5:43

Yeah. I - JoJo: If there's more that you're curious about, I’m happy - Oh, I could talk about the CMC all day. And I, like - I had no idea what all the CMC was doing. I didn't know about the free grocery store. That's an incredible initiative. I'm glad that you were able to have that set up during the shutdown, because I'm sure that helped a lot of people.

JoJo: 6:04

Yeah, people took it really seriously. Like when things were really bad, the protocols were extremely safe, people were being really cautious of what they were doing so that when they were doing free grocery store, that was like their in-person involvement that they would do. So everybody would try to stay as safe as possible. And they really took a lot of initiative on getting more donations of food. They also buy some food with donations of money that they have received. And so they make sure that all the households get like a good amount of food for the week, and try to make it as round as possible and cater to people's dietary needs, as well as like access needs, or if they have any health problems, like making sure that they get the foods that they - align with their needs.

Eleanore: 6:49

I feel like we've talked about so much but like, Eleanore - there's also so much more we could cover. JoJo: Maybe we need a part two. We've done part twos for other organizations! JoJo: [laughs] Like, I think we can easily do like, multiple parts for the CMC. There's so much - we could do a whole episode just on like the CMC’s library, because like the Stetson Kennedy library, the zine library, all of the events that you've had surrounding the library. But it has been like 30 minutes, so we should probably wrap it up. Jojo, thank you so much for talking with us today.

JoJo: 7:20

Yeah, you’re welcome.

Eleanore: 7:21

This was a fascinating conversation. We could talk for hours about this.

JoJo: 7:25

Thank you so much for supporting us.

Eleanore: 7:27

Yeah, thank you for agreeing to this interview. You guys rock.

JoJo: 7:31

Thank you. Eleanore: Have a good day.[music] Thanks for listening to Patrons & Partnerships. If you know of an individual or organization you’d like to recommend for an interview, email us at lpsfprogram@gmail.com. To listen to more episodes, find us on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Spotify. Be sure to check out the Alachua County Library on Spotify while you’re there for chill playlists to read to, hand-picked by our librarians. September is National Library Card Sign-Up Month, and ACLD is holding a contest to win a $20 grocery gift card to Publix courtesy of the Rotary Club of Gainesville. To enter, sign up for a library card at any of our branches and take a photo with our mega card. Post it on social media and tag us with @alachualibrary. Visit aclib.us/librarycardsignup for more information. Do you have a budding scientist in the family? Join us this fall for Science Tales, a weekly Zoom series every Tuesday at 11 am from September 28th to November 2nd. Library staff have teamed up with UF, Santa Fe, and Alachua County Audubon for a STEM lesson on topics ranging from ornithology to rocketry. For more information, visit our site at aclib.us/sciencetales. The Fall Teen Art Show is right around the corner! Teens aged 12 to 15 are encouraged to submit their work between September 17th and October 15th for the chance to see their art displayed on our website or hung on the Headquarters Gallery Wall. More information, including entry forms, can be found online at aclib.us/teens/teenartshow.