Walt Crawford and COWLZ

Walt Crawford, one of the people whose writings and thoughts on librarianship I most respect, if only because he doesn’t seem to take himself too seriously (and for many other reasons, also), has renewed a call for interest in COWLZ via his weblog. COWLZ stands for Consortium/Coalition/Committee Of Web-based Library Zines and newsletters. A year or two ago, when Walt first called for interested parties to get together to try to plot out a plan for increasing and preserving access to library zines and newsletters via his publication, Cites & Insights: Crawford-At-Large, I foolishly jumped in and raised my hand — in a virtual sense — and said I’d be glad to try to help the project, even (and I blush as I write this) to the point of leading it. This isn’t the first time I’ve done something like this in my career and sadly enough, it probably won’t be the last. My bold assurances of support and interest fell flat and to this day, I am embarrassed about the fact that I never really followed through on my promises of assistance. About the only good thing I did was to recruit Eric Lease Morgan to the effort. I also tried, in vain, to garner support from the North American Serials Interest Group (NASIG), but that was about it.Anyway, the point is, this is a very worthwhile effort. The need is there and I hope that someone will be able to step up to the plate and help to launch a wide-ranging effort to save and increase access to this somewhat transient, yet vital, source of library literature. If you’re interested, I suggest that you contact Walt directly.