Mailing Lists

In this section, some mailing lists, and collections of mailing lists, of relevance to people affected by, or interested in, electronic library developments, are listed.

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Mailing lists, though not as glamorous as the Web, are a powerful medium by which to publicise your project, partake in debates (or just observe them), and keep up with whatever is happening in your field of interest. This page lists several lists, and collections of lists, which may be of interest to people inside eLib projects, or people interested in projects, the programme or related developments.

eLib mailing lists

Several projects, and the programme itself, maintain mailing lists:

• lis-elib: this is the main mailing list for the programme, and as such, everyone involved in a project should be on it. The list is used to notify people of events, deliverables, funding and significant situation vacancies, as well as being the host of the occasional debate on matters connected to electronic library development. The list is unmoderated and open to all.
• nls-forum: the networked learner support forum. Moderated by the Netlinks eLib project, this list is for anyone involved or interested in NLS - the use of networked technologies to provide training or other forms of help to users of networked information resources.
• lis-elib-managers: this is a list for project managers and key co-ordinators within the programme.
• lis-elib-tech: similar to lis-elib, this list is restricted to the more technical discussions arising from ongoing work in eLib projects.

Other eLib lists

Several of the eLib projects maintain mailing lists to support their project, or to disseminate results or news of upgrades of their deliverable. Most of these lists are supported by the Mailbase service: details used to be available at the eLib list section but this list is no longer complete. eLib mailing lists found by search on 'elib' are listed below:

1. agora-all
   Superlist for the eLib funded agora project cover agora-board and agora-partners
2. agora-associates
   List for those involved in the eLib funded agora project. The project aims to provide an open, standards based platform for distribued, mixed-media information management as well as a framework for end-user services and a scaleable infrastructure.
3. agora-project
   List for parties interested in the eLib funded agora-project who are not on the other agora lists. The project aims to provide an open, standards based platform for distribued, mixed-media information management as well as a framework for end-user services and a scaleable infrastructure.
4. cousns
   Cousns is a venue for the eLib subject gateways and others with an interest in resource discovery and metadata services to share news and opinions.
5. eevl
   A list for discussion of the eLib EEVL (Edinburgh Engineering Virtual Library) project. EEVL will provide a gateway to network information resources of interest to engineers in UK higher education. >
6. headline-users
   Open discussion & feedback forum for users of services developed by the eLib HEADLINE project
7. lis-cairns
   A closed list for staff, directors and steering group members of the CAIRNS (Co-operative Academic Information Retrieval Network for Scotland) clumps project from eLib phase 3
8. lis-elib
   The lis-elib list is for general discussion on the FIGIT Electronic Libraries Programme (eLib) and its projects. More specific eLib lists may be set up later. The list is run on behalf of Chris Rusbridge.
9. lis-elib-eddis
   The list will facilitate communication between Project Board and technical team members of the EDDIS (Electronic Document Delivery: The Integrated Solution) Project. The general theme relates to the development of an integrated search, retrieve, order, and document delivery service to end users.
10. lis-elib-edulib
    A forum for librarians & others supporting users of networked information. Opened by EduLib: the national network of electronic library accredited trainers, the list will stimulate discussion on the skills required in the Electronic Library, exchange experience on training issues & report progress.
11. lis-elib-tech
    This list will be used for discussion of technical issues relating to the eLib projects.
12. lis-newsagent-help
    A feedback and help list for the NewsAgent for Libraries eLib project. Users of the service will send requests for help or comments to the list where they will be dealt with by the most appropriate project member (ie Technical,Editorial or Admin issues).
13. netskills-forum
    Netskills is a national eLib-funded training project, to increase awareness of networked information resources within UK Higher Education. This list provides input to the Netskills programme and materials by supporting discussion between those involved in delivering and receiving network training.
14. netskills-news
    A general list to disseminate information and news about the Netskills Network Training Project. Netskills is part of eLib, the Electronic Libraries Programme.
15. repec-admin
    This list is a closed unmoderated channel for the administration of the RePEc project. RePEc is a library of electronic working papers in Economics (http://netec.mcc.ac.uk/RePEc) It has received financial support from the eLib Programme through the WoPEc project at http://netec.mcc.ac.uk/WoPEc.html
16. riding-all
    Super list for the eLib Riding Project. This project is looking at large scale resource discovery, using the Z39.50 protocol, across Yorkshire and Humberside libraries
17. riding-project
    Open discussion list for members of libraries and others involved in the eLib Riding Project. This project is looking at large scale resource discovery, using the Z39.50 protocol, across Yorkshire and Humberside libraries
18. riding-technical
    Riding-technical is for discussion of the technical aspects of the implementation and testing of a Z39.50 gateway, using libraries in the Yorkshire and Humberside Univerities Association as the testbed. The Riding Project is an eLib 'clumping' project.

Significant digital/electronic library lists

Besides the eLib lists, there are several mailing lists that are of potential interest to people involved in, or developing some part of, electronic library initiatives or deliverables. Some of these are UK centric, while others have a more international perspective. A good way of judging the appropriateness of a list is to look at the list archives (where they are provided); these are also a very useful way of catching up on previous discussions.

• Web4Lib Electronic Discussion: the Web4Lib electronic discussion is for the discussion of issues relating to the creation and management of library-based World-Wide Web servers and clients. The audience is fairly global (some 3,400 subscribers), and the traffic fluctuates in intensity.
• Library and Information Technology Association list: this carries a stream of announcements and initiatives, with a heavy US bias. It is useful for publicising library initiatives to a US audience. On the list of lists, look for lita-l@ala.org.
• DIGLIB - a discussion list for Digital Libraries researchers and librarians: maintained by IFLA, this is a list used mainly for announcements of events and initiatives, though some discussions of relevance do take place. The audience is predominantly US.
• PACS-L list: the public-access computer systems forum deals with end-user computer systems in libraries. It is lightly moderated, and has an international audience of some 11,000 subscribers.
• ELAG-L: the European library automation group list. Not the most busy of lists, but announcements placed on it do reach a significant number of European digital library researchers.
• lis-link: though not primarily a discussion list for matters digital/electronic library, this list is the main UK one for academic librarians, and is thus an ideal media for publicising relevant deliverables to that community.

Collections of lists

There are various archives and collections of pointers to mailing lists and newsgroups that are useful when tracking down lists of relevance on which to participate, or publicise initiatives/deliverables.

• Mailbase: Mailbase provide the hosting and supporting services, such as archives, for many UK-centric mailing lists. In addition, there are facilities for searching list descriptions, finding who is on which list, and browsing lists by name or subject category. Essential.
• tile.net archive: an archive of mailing lists and newsgroups that can be searched and browsed. The lists can be browsed according to subject; for example, there is an index of library related lists.
• Liszt mailing list directory: a collection of some 71,000 mailing lists (though a fair proportion are now redundant), descriptions of which can be searched or browsed.
• Directory of scholarly electronic conferences: an archive of several thousand mailing lists and newsgroups, with a bias towards academically-relevant media. The archive is searchable and browsable, and the list are categorised by subject, for example library and information science.
• listserv lists known to Surfnet: a single (very long) file, with identifiers and titles of all the Listserv lists that the Surfnet server lists. Keyword searching on this list occasionally throws up the odd gem.