Archiving the history of the San Francisco punk scene circa 1975-1990. Plus updates on the collection @ the SF Main Public Library.
03/21/2024
240 new punk photos from Mindy Bagdon posted on the SFPL's digital site!
San Francisco Punk Archive | San Francisco Public Library The San Francisco Punk Archive preserves and showcases materials that document the punk music and culture scene in the San Francisco Bay Area from 1977 to the mid-eighties. The archive contains fliers, posters, zines, photographs, and other ephemera that relate to the bands, venues, shows, and event...
06/28/2023
‘Hit Girls’ Explores Early, Female-Led Bay Area Punk at the San Francisco Library Avengers and Frightwig members will discuss their experiences of early Bay Area punk with author Jen Larson on June 29.
10/13/2021
5 Under the Radar Places to Learn About San Francisco’s Legendary Music Scene Who knew the SFPL has an archive dedicated to all things punk in San Francisco
11/13/2020
From the variety of requests from customers to why you always put the person looking at the 400 year old manuscript in the front row of tables, we learned a lot from Penelope about how lively (and sometimes chaotic) the SF Public Library can get.
Still, her genuine love for people and the job was evident, and it was fascinating to learn more about how libraries work.
If you haven't listened yet, find us everywhere podcasts are available, and on our website at https://killed-by-desk.simplecast.com/.
11/11/2020
Secrets of the archives...
07 Penelope Houston - The Avengers - Solo Artist - Library Technician | Killed by Desk For a large portion of her career as a singer-songwriter, Penelope Houston did “quit her day job!” For the last 25 years (before retiring earlier this year), she served as a library technician at the San Francisco Public Library, where she was able to navigate the paraprofessional path and exert...
02/22/2020
The Archive is mentioned at the end of this article in the current SF Weekly!
Avengers Assembled - SF Weekly The old-school punk band will play all their hits when they come back to San Francisco.
09/16/2019
Who can recognize this ephemera from a recently uncovered donation at the SF History Center? It was handed to us with no history attached... Largely circa 1981. We are most curious about the items on the right and the bottom. And who is Nightworks: Baron Larvae?
Thanks for your interest in San Francisco’s punk history.
The SF Punk Archive is a permanent collection curated by Penelope Houston of the Avengers, and is part of the San Francisco History Center at the San Francisco Public Library.
Our archives are housed in temperature and humidity controlled stacks and made available by request for viewing to researchers and the general public in the securely staffed History Center reference room on the sixth floor of the Main Library. We're collecting material from Northern California circa 1975-1990 that documents punk and it's outlying cultures.
Larger collections include:
Avengers/Penelope Houston
Cecelia Kuhn/Frightwig
Chatterbox Bar
Debbie Dub/Starting Fires/Will Shatter
Recent donations include:
72 B/W photos circa 1979-82, Elaine Vestal
Jack Fan’s Anti-Zine, 1980-81
104 flyers from 1980-89, Irene Barnard
A full run of Ivy’s Calendar, Mindagus Bagdon
We are always excited to receive new donations. Here's a an idea of what we are most interested in: Northern California circa 1975-1990 that documents punk and it's outlying cultures. All physical formats, including: photos, audio and visual recordings (most formats), oral histories, original ephemera (flyers, posters, tickets) manuscripts (handwritten lyrics, set-lists, artworks), published materials (articles, books, zines) t-shirts and smaller realia. At the moment we are not collecting digital scans or files.
Items accepted into the collection become reference materials for in-library-use only and are not for sale.
Please contact us with any questions. Penelope(dot)Houston(at)SFPL(dot)org
| Monday | 9am - 6pm |
| Tuesday | 9am - 8pm |
| Wednesday | 9am - 8pm |
| Thursday | 9am - 8pm |
| Friday | 12pm - 6pm |
| Saturday | 10am - 6pm |
| Sunday | 12pm - 6pm |