Redefining a Movement: The Riot Grrrl Collection at Fales Library

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collection represents a form of institutional assimilation. While 

the critique is not entirely surprising, it rests on the assumption 

that Riot Grrrl, once upon a time, existed outside the academy, an 

assumption by no means consistent with either the movement’s 

history or its mandate.

Institutionalization and Assimilation

As previously emphasized, upon news of the Riot Grrrl Col-

lection’s development, many bloggers celebrated not only the 

development of an archival collection dedicated to Riot Grrrl 

but also the appearance of a new destination for fans. A response 

to a posting on The Girls Are . . . blog read: “How awesome! Yes, 

roadtrip!” The Girls Are . . . agreed: “Seriously, I think I [could] 

craft a roadtrip around this one activity!”

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 If the initial public 

response to the Riot Grrrl Collection was marked by preliminary 

plans for pilgrimages to Fales Library, then as the conditions 

of the collection became more apparent some fans responded 

with disappointment. In November 2010, the following tongue-

and-cheek article appeared in the Village Voice, which may have 

further contributed to the rumors and confusion about the col-

lection’s access policy:

. . . the collection is only open to “qualified researchers’ 

(a/k/a academes) to view in the Fales” reading room. For 

the rest of us unqualified schlubs, Darms is also looking 

to sponsor symposiums and conferences centered around 

grrrl cultural/feminism/queer studies as well as possible 

exhibitions and screenings.

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While the Village Voice piece was presumably not intended as 

a critique, responses on their website and subsequent online 

debates suggest that at least some fans considered the collec-

tion’s access policy at odds with Riot Grrrl’s central tenets. On 

the Village Voice website, for example, Fran responded, presum-

ably under the impression that Hanna had never agreed to the 

terms of the collection, with the following post: “i don’t think 

that kathleen hanna would of donated this collection if she 

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had [known] that it was only accessible to the educated elite!”

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Darms not surprisingly rejects suggestions that the decision to 

locate the Riot Grrrl papers in a special collections library at a 

private university is necessarily problematic:

[Fales Library has] a relatively open policy for access, but 

it still needs to be an appointment made through me or 

another curator, and you still need to have a scholarly proj-

ect. Scholarly is something we interpret broadly, because 

many of our researchers are artists. . . . I have made sure 

that the donations have happened with an understand-

ing that the materials will be accessed for scholarly proj-

ects. This has been the motivation for the donors so far—a 

recognition that the materials will support research. They 

haven’t donated their materials to make them more acces-

sible to fans.

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This is not to suggest that the backlash has been entirely easy 

for Darms. She admits, “it is difficult for me because my back-

ground is an anti-institutional, DIY, fuck the institution phi-

losophy.”

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 Darms adds that, although she has not had any resis-

tance from donors yet, “maybe the potential donors who aren’t 

responding have some qualms about placing their materials in 

an institution.”

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 The women who have agreed to donate their 

papers clearly share much with Darms in their thinking about 

the archive.

Hanna’s and Fateman’s support for the collection’s develop-

ment, for example, also emphasizes the importance of preserva-

tion. “I didn’t want to give all my stuff to some collective that 

might close down in a month and throw my stuff in the trash,” 

explained Hanna.

56

 When asked about the collection’s institu-

tional location, Fateman also emphasized the desire to place her 

papers in an established archive: “There are DIY archives but are 

they committed to preservation? Likely not in the way an insti-

tutional collection is committed to preservation.”

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 In addition 

to emphasizing the importance of preservation and the fact that 

institutional archives, such as Fales Library, are typically better 

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redefining a movement  /  105

equipped to carry out preservation than collections located 

in community settings, which frequently lack proper storage 

facilities, Darms, Fateman, and Hanna offer shared responses, 

consistent with at least two important tenets of Riot Grrrl, to 

critiques of the collection’s location.

First, the collection, which will provide access to a wide range 

of academic and independent researchers but at the discretion 

of library staff, appears to reflect the Riot Grrrl movement’s own 

commitment to open access within limits. On this account, it 

is by no means insignificant that in defense of the collection’s 

institutional context, Hanna draws a parallel between the col-

lection and contemporary zine production:

It’s like people who make paper fanzines in 2010 are making 

a specific choice to reach a smaller audience than maybe a 

blog could, it’s an artistic decision. One that has to do with 

having a tactile object that exists in the real world and can 

be physically passed from person to person. Choosing an 

archive that has an intended audience and isn’t for every-

one is a similar choice to me. Also, since most of the stuff I 

donated was created before the internet, I would prefer it be 

viewed physically and in context. If it was open to everyone 

little bits of it would inevitably end up on the internet, and 

I don’t really want rough drafts of shit I wrote twenty years 

ago popping up online ahistorical style.

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Second, Darms emphasizes the importance of understanding 

that this collection, unlike existing collections of Riot Grrrl 

related materials, contains the papers of individuals and not 

simply zines, recordings, and artwork that have already been 

in circulation, if only in the semipublic textual communities of 

zine producers.

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 As a result, it requires more care and sensitiv-

ity and hence a heightened degree of what some fans perceive as 

institutional gatekeeping:

Much of the material is very personal and with the figures 

involved, it could be very divisive if certain information 

was freely circulated—we’re collecting journals, letters, 

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