Alternative Library

Alternative Library A REAL LIBRARY We are a collective library, run and operated by our members. All our books are sought out specifically for the unique interests of our members.

We specialize in rare books and marginalized or subversive ideas which wouldn't be so easily found through mainstream means.

Tatsuya Nakatani (Japan) returns to Bellingham next week, joined by Lost Sock (Cascadia), and spinning out of the weekly...
02/26/2026

Tatsuya Nakatani (Japan) returns to Bellingham next week, joined by Lost Sock (Cascadia), and spinning out of the weekly contact improvisation jam at the Akido dojo in Bellingham.

Monday, March 2nd
Aikido Peace Education Center
1101 N State Street

• 5:30pm - Contact Improvisation Class
• 7pm - Contact Improvisation Open Movement Jam
• 8:30pm - Lost Sock ( + ) live improvised music for movement
• 9:15pm - Tatsuya Nakatani ( ) solo percussion performance

$10 suggested donation supports the artists and the venue

Tatsuya Nakatani is an avant-garde percussionist, composer, and sound artist. His primary focus is his solo work and his large ensemble project, the Nakatani Gong Orchestra, which we hosted in 2019. Nakatani’s distinctive music centered around his adapted bowed gong, supported by an array of drums, cymbals, and singing bowls. In consort with his personally hand-carved Kobo Bows, he has spent decades refining and developing his sound as an arrangement of formations of vibrations, incorporated in shimmering layers of silence and texture. Within this contemporary work, one can still recognize the dramatic pacing, formal elegance and space (ma) felt in traditional Japanese music.

Lost Sock is the duo of percussionist Melanie Sehman and multi-instrumentalist Future. The two met while playing in the chamber pop group Hooves & Beak, and began meeting before band practices to experiment with electronics and extended technique playing. The two continue to play together, but public shows are rare. This will be their first since 2021.

We will also popup with our mutual aid zine distro, featuring a selection of zines available by donation.

The venue is located up a flight of stairs, and the doors will be closed and locked, except for brief moments transition times. Please ring the doorbell to be let in if you arrive outside one of these transitions. If you have mobility accessibility needs, please contact us with 24-hours advance notice and we will make arrangements for you.

Blow the Whistle on ICE: Developing a community alert system in Whatcom County.Monday, December 1st, 3-5pm2123 New Stree...
11/29/2025

Blow the Whistle on ICE: Developing a community alert system in Whatcom County.

Monday, December 1st, 3-5pm
2123 New Street

We have heard and seen reports coming from Los Angeles and Chicago of communities using whistles to help raise the alarm when ICE agents are identified in an area. Whistles can be heard from a distance, allowing us to communicate about the presence of ICE as they move through urban areas, and giving time and space for anyone who would be at risk of being targeted to get to safety.

We will be distributing whistles and information regarding nationwide ICE resistance. Let’s talk about what we can do in Whatcom County to make our community safer ❤️

BELLINGHAM: TONIGHT at 2123 New Street. Come eat food and listen to Eric King’s wisdom on prisons and state violence. Yo...
10/17/2025

BELLINGHAM: TONIGHT at 2123 New Street. Come eat food and listen to Eric King’s wisdom on prisons and state violence. You can challenge him to a game of Scrabble, but you will lose.

While the world watched the  attacked and illegally abducted at sea, Israel intensified its assault on Gaza, killing 77+...
10/02/2025

While the world watched the attacked and illegally abducted at sea, Israel intensified its assault on Gaza, killing 77+ Palestinians in 24 hours, trapping civilians to the south, and preparing a full-scale invasion.
Our struggle is one: for freedom, for life, for Palestine.

This is why we sail. This is why we resist.
SHUT IT ALL DOWN FOR GAZA.

Autonomous solidarity actions are being carried out globally on October 2nd! See post slides for rally points in Bellingham and Seattle 🖤

Thanks to Palestinian journalist for the on the ground reporting.

Tonight, we invite you to attend a book talk on the newly published volume from a fantastic regional radical publisher, ...
08/17/2025

Tonight, we invite you to attend a book talk on the newly published volume from a fantastic regional radical publisher, Historical Seditions! We’re happy to present a talk on their most extensively researched publication yet::: Deconstructing Settler Socialism: The Internationals and Anarchism in the Wild West 🤠

TONIGHT, August 17th, 6pm
Lookout Arts Quarry
246 Old Hwy 99 N
Bellingham, WA 98229

The talk will be presented in the warehouse movement studio at the Lookout Arts Quarry. Please park in the lower lot near the large blue warehouse building and enter through the doors on the west side.

We will additionally present some publications from the AltLib radical zine distro 📚 …and more 🤫

Last week we dropped off hundreds of free newspapers, test prints, rare zines, and more at Fairhaven College. As the sto...
03/12/2025

Last week we dropped off hundreds of free newspapers, test prints, rare zines, and more at Fairhaven College. As the story goes, students descended on the boxes of free radical literature like wild dogs, tearing into the stacks and leaving newspapers strewn across the halls, into dormitories, and through the cafeteria for the following week, despite janitorial efforts to the contrary.

Much of the material distributed came from and though forensics would be hard pressed to identify much more.

We just printed a bunch of these double-sided red cards with bilingual English and Spanish text, to help people assert t...
02/13/2025

We just printed a bunch of these double-sided red cards with bilingual English and Spanish text, to help people assert their rights in interactions with law enforcement officers.

If you work with communities that could find this helpful and want to help distribute them, please just DM us to arrange to get some.

Cards were printed on our handy Risograph GR-3770.

❤️

This weekend, August 9th-11th, we will be traveling back in time to learn the old ways of publishing! We’ve recently acq...
08/06/2024

This weekend, August 9th-11th, we will be traveling back in time to learn the old ways of publishing! We’ve recently acquired a couple Multilith offset presses that we’ll be bringing back to life and learning to use with the support of

Additionally, will offer a brief tutorial of photocopying and basic zine publishing with a laser printer and using the Risograph GR-3770.

If you’d like more information, send an email to: [email protected]

Hello to the friends of the Alternative Library! We’re here with some updates and a little ask. As many of you know, the...
03/05/2024

Hello to the friends of the Alternative Library! We’re here with some updates and a little ask. As many of you know, the Alt Lib has seen a lot of variations over the years — from Sushi House to the Karate Church, we’ve got a deep history of radical literature and creation. Over the last few years, we’ve put a lot of time and effort toward imagining the next iteration of this space, envisioning a community events space, bookstore, gallery and arts studio where community members can access the full library catalog, attend classes and workshops, and utilize a range of unique printing technologies. As we look forward to this prospect, we ask for your support in dreaming up the next step of the Alternative Library. Please take the short survey (in our story and soon in our bio) to help us tailor our programming and services to fit the needs of you all, our community!

Yesterday some of our crew traveled to Seattle to participate in global actions in solidarity with Palestine. Thousands ...
03/04/2024

Yesterday some of our crew traveled to Seattle to participate in global actions in solidarity with Palestine. Thousands of people turned out in Seattle and took a few blocks in the center of Seattle with chants in the streets, led by youth organizers in connection with

We distributed hundreds of pamphlets from our publication studio while talking with other people who had come out to the march.

The tone in the streets was safe, with a tight crowd and without any sign of disruption from the police. The march moved very slowly for just a few blocks, with cars and bicycles escorting it and police encircling it at a distance. We had numerous conversations with people who wondered how much longer the bombardments could last, and wished for more ways that they could actively disrupt the violence or leverage our collective power.

The march ended at the base of Seattle’s Space Needle. Some of the crowd began to disperse, but for those who remained, we witnessed a powerful display of cultural resilience from the youth chant leaders, as the drums kicked up the rhythm and the chants shifted from English to Arabic, allowing everyone there to feel that despite the USA continuing to fund the genocide that we’ve been made to witness unfolding online, their culture would remain strong, and when the empires of colonialism fall, they will still survive to return to their homeland!

📸: .photography

We foresee a free Palestine! ❤️🇵🇸 A few weeks ago we printed these posters on the Risograph, based on a design by  🖤We j...
12/24/2023

We foresee a free Palestine! ❤️🇵🇸 A few weeks ago we printed these posters on the Risograph, based on a design by 🖤

We just added them to our online store (link in the bio) and all proceeds will go to Samidoun’s Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, which works to support political prisoners and protestors including Shukri Abu Baker, Ghassan Elashi and Mufid Abdelqader, “the remaining prisoners of the Holy Land Five — Palestinian community leaders who were convicted and imprisoned for providing charity like food and medicine to orphans and widows in Palestine.” You can find more information about the campaign to free the Holy Land Five .

Today marks day 78 of the war and genocide against Palestinian peoples, funded by U.S. tax dollars. We demand a permanent ceasefire and an end to all forms of imperialism and racial capitalism.

11” x 17” Cream 70 # Cover, printed with black, Green, and Bright Red inks using a Risograph GR-3770 serviced by

https://www.etsy.com/shop/AlternativeLibrary

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Bellingham, WA

Opening Hours

Wednesday 12pm - 5pm
Thursday 12pm - 5pm
Friday 12pm - 5pm
Saturday 12pm - 5pm

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