Zine World Wide Web

Julie brought to my attention today that the catalog and index of my zine donations to DePaul University is now available as a PDF download.

For going on 10 years now, I've been sending them every zine and zine-related correspondence and ephemera I gather for inclusion in their zine collection, which was sparked by the 1994 (or so) Underground Press Conference. They primarily collect zines from the Midwest, but because I send them correspondence and ephemera, they include everything I send.

They've done a good job annotating many of the items I've donated to date, and it makes me want to send them the three-plus boxes of material I've gathered and packed since my last donation. I've been a bad reviewer for Zine World in recent months, so much so that I was dropped from the volunteers list in the most recent edition, and I'm somewhat sheepish about my missed deadlines and backlog of material on which to comment.

But this collection matters and is available for people to explore. And that's a good thing.

In other zine news, I finally met Brett Leveridge, the mind behind BrettNews, last night. We traded zines and letters years ago -- so long ago that he didn't even remember me. That makes me think two things. One, the zines you made 13 years ago don't matter much now. And two, the people you meet through the media you make are worth keeping in touch regardless of the media you're making. Brett's a wonderful man, and I've been a dolt to let him fall by the wayside.