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This article is intended to be an overview of major library resources of alternative publications, focusing on the period starting from the 1960s to the present. It serves as a guide to library reference collections including resources in print, microfilms and online databases.

The annotated bibliography is divided into five sections: indexes, periodical and ephemera collections, bibliographies, agencies and associations, and books/reviews.

This overview of major library resources of alternative publications focuses on the period starting from the 1960s to the present. It serves as a guide to library reference collections including resources in print, microfilms and online databases.

Alternative publications are a unique library resource for social science research. They are usually referred to as non‐standard and non‐establishment publications, and they have their own indexes with specific finding guides that are not included in conventional periodical indexes or databases. It will be of interest to social science librarians and to reference librarians who work with researchers and students in social studies.

Despite the title of this bibliography, there was not a truly underground press in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. The phrase is amisnomer, reputedly coined on the spur of the moment in 1966 by Thomas Forcade when asked to describe the newly established news service, Underground Press Syndicate, of which he was an active member. The papers mentioned in this bibliography, except for the publications of the Weather Underground, were not published by secretive, covert organizations. Freedom of the press and of expression is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution, although often only symbolically as the experience of the undergrounds will show, and most of the publications that fall into the “underground” described herein maintained public offices, contracted with commercial printers, and often used the U.S. Postal Service to distribute their publications.

As is true of so much that we read and hear, neither of these statements is wholly accurate. While the Association of American Publishers may not have a position in favor of increasing conglomeration in the publishing industry, it is most certainly not opposed to it. As others have noted in this handbook, the growing domination of publishing by a small number of large firms is changing the amount and quality of available information in ways not yet fully understood. If libraries are to provide quality service, library workers should bring all their powers of analysis and skepticism to their jobs. They must involve themselves more fully than ever before in all aspects of knowledge and its avenues of dissemination, so that the library might provide as full a range of resources and services as possible for the needs of its clientele. To judge materials without examination, or without careful regard for the source of information, is to abdicate the inherent responsibility of a library service. For in a great many ways, the librarian's selection of materials influences what is published.

It's not enough to simply acquire alternative and small‐press materials. They must also be made easily accessible to library users by means of accurate, intelligible, and thorough cataloging.

Since June 1982, when Alternative Papers was published, I have asked friends, enemies, and strangers to review it, yet I confess I was rather surprised when the editor of this column turned the tables and asked me to review it. Certainly, my co‐editors and I do know the book—what it was intended to achieve, what went into producing it, and how it has been received—probably better than anyone else. Funny, no one asked me before…

The most challenging aspect of overseeing an alternative press collection is to provide adequate reference service. The same forces that cause libraries to ignore alternative publications also conspire against their using them fully and effectively once they have been acquired. This holds true for all forms of alternative literature and media, though periodicals probably suffer the most severe neglect. Many periodicals go unindexed from year to year because such companies as H. W. Wilson and its Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature stick basically to a traditional core of “safe” or “acceptable” periodicals. (It took Readers' Guide ten years to include Rolling Stone, which had long since shed its “alternative” image.)

Discusses the importance of the alternative press and what libraries can do to ensure a healthy alternative press. Argues that libraries must counter the illusion that the current media offers more choice. They need to: prioritize the acquisition and cataloguing of alternative press publications; encourage professional associations to promote the alternative press more actively; and “adopt” alternative publishers. Concludes that libraries can offer sanctuaries for alternative voices and should ensure that they have diverse collections that truly represent the full spectrum of published opinion.

The diversity of ideas and information is central to the meaning of libraries—we enshrine it, and too frequently that is the word—in our Library Bill of Rights and other documents. This diversity of ideas is more than a passive concept, not just one of defending materials already in our collections, though that is a basic and important role for librarians and one that we are reminded of by Drake, Fairhope, and Kannawha counties. But to support this intellectual freedom we all need to actively promote the widest possible range of opinions, of concepts, of expression. And to do this we need more than the output of Gulf & Western, the Columbia Broadcasting System, Mattel, or Times Mirror. If these names seem unfamiliar in library work to some of you, perhaps you know them through their subsidiaries, Golden Books, Pantheon, and Simon & Schuster.

Most grey literature tends to support the disciplines it serves and does not usually raise issues regarding social, political, or ethical considerations. The “other” grey literature, publications issued by alternative presses, attempts to inform readers about aspects of a particular scientific endeavor that may have social ramifications. In the electronic age, the World Wide Web has played a major role in making scientific information accessible to a wide audience more rapidly and efficiently. This democratic approach to information dissemination in science is changing the way science is perceived and implemented in our daily lives. Alternative presses in both electronic and print formats will continue to play a role in shaping the science research and public policy agendas well into the future. This article explores the role of alternative presses and its impact on scientific communication.

To ignore the alternative press is perilous. The Cold War may have ended, but social protest literature abounds, not just on the Web. Grey political left literature deserves more attention as a counterpoint to the misinformation churned out by the corporate media.