Through various means — social software, personal email, conversations — I’m getting the distinct impression that many newer librarians don’t care for email discussion lists (listservs, MailMan lists, etc.).
I’m not fighting this; in part, as a social software kind of gal, I understand it, in a blurry personal sort of way. My own take on lists is that a few voices dominate, whereas on my favorite networks, the distribution is more ecumenical.
But I’d like to know: if you don’t like email lists — why? Do you have other, better tools? Are there characteristics of lists that are offputting or alien to your behavior? Do you communicate differently?
Posted on this day, other years:
- For you're no bigger than my thumb... - 2009
- Powder: The YouTube Trailer - 2008
- The Unmentionable Tallahassee Issue Gets Mentioned - 2006
- FRL Among the Digirati - 2005
- LiB Covers Gorman at CLA - 2005
- Such Long Legs I Have... - 2005
- A Dissident and a Magazine - 2004
- lii.org Toolbar - 2003
- RSS Woes - 2003
- Second IL Con-Grunt: Search - 2003
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I’ve been meaning to write a little about this, but, lackadaisical blogger that I am, I’ll just comment here instead.
I have at various times subscribed to lists, although I’ve pretty much dropped all of them at this point. I found Publib quite useful in my first year of full-time library work, but after awhile, I found it repetitive, and I found I could usually get answers to my questions by searching the archives.
I also got the sense, after awhile, that there was a community of Publib. There were a lot of frequent posters, many of whom referred to each other familiarly, and many of whom, I believe, have been on the list since its inception. It dawned on me then that maybe Publib for those people is what Twitter and the LSW Meebo Room are for me: places where I can get advice and encouragement from like-minded librarians.
If I had to, I would bet that in ten or twenty years, a new group of librarians will feel like those of us on Twitter are a kind of old-fashioned clique, and they’ll find their own community.
I’d like to emphasize that I never found Publib unfriendly or unwelcoming–it simply seemed like a place where everyone else already knew each other. I needed a space like that of my own. And I like the nature of the spaces I’ve found–and I like that they don’t fill up my in-box! (I tried filtering messages into their own folders, and the result of that was that I never read them.)
I think email is so last century. Email lists from listservs clog up your mailbox, and if you don’t do automated mailbox sorting, it’s a nightmare. Not to mention, cross posting irritates the hell out of me. It takes too much time to pick up what’s relevant and it’s too easy to miss good ones if you get hundreds of emails a day. I communicate mostly over Web 2.0 tools. Blogs are good, you can subscribe to feeds that only interest you. If I need to collaborate, I’ll use Google Docs. Passing a document through an email list for group collaboration is simply inefficient and things can get out of control pretty quickly.
I don’t mind email lists, though I feel they serve a different purpose for me than twitter and the LSW and unvocab. The lists I’m on have a number of people who have been in the profession longer than I have and who can provide input and help when I need to ask for tips on where to go to answer a tough reference question or the like. The lists are where they are, so that’s where I go – I treat them more like a reference desk for librarians than a community.
The social sites – the Twitter and Facebook and LSW are that – they’re a place I can go to be social AND to connect with other librarians. I do ask questions there sometimes, but I very much feel like it’s on an equal footing with the others. On the lists, I don’t feel that equality – and I think it comes from the sense of being outside the community that’s developed among the other people on them than from anything that’s specifically said or done.
But both are necessary for me right now, so I’ll keep on participating in both.
Yes, I was coming by to say exactly what Laura said in her last paragraph: no way can I deal with the messages one-by-one; crummy quoting makes digests completely unreadable; and filtering into folders means I never read them. They just don’t “fit” for me.
There isn’t the individual voice you find on blogs, nor is there the high level of interaction you find in IM, Twitter, etc.
The best list I was ever on (for me) was the III users group list. Lots of helpful people when I had a question, and I never felt compelled to keep up with the list as a whole.
I find e-mail lists frustrating because of the people who insist on changing the subject lines (thus starting a new thread in the Gmail account I use to subscribe to them, and messing up the whole reason I was using Gmail to start with). As Laura said, on Publib in particular (which I still subscribe to, despite now being in an academic library, but am thinking of dropping), there are a lot of frequent posters dominating the conversations, and too much off-topic and in-joke discussions. I just don’t have the time.
That being said, I don’t care for Twitter either, especially the annoying bloggers who send their Twitter to their blogs. If I wanted to read that, I’d get into Twitter! Ugh.
I’m also finding my blog feeds are getting too numerous. I’m about to leave on a 10-day vacation, and when I get back, I think every blog that I haven’t saved a post for (as well as the annoying ones who Twitter in their blogs), and probably my listservs too, are all gonna go, or I will never catch up.
hello & hi to all my library professionals from the land of the Lord Buddha that is Nepal,
librar science is a ne w subject in nepal, i m a student cum practionor of this field,
i found this subject deeply philosophical , could you help me dechipher the hidden clues for managing the Knowledge plz?
yours
vishma bhattarai
I use the email lists within CUNY, because that’s the way CUNY librarians communicate mostly. I’m on other list-servs which I don’t pay attention to at all.
I for one wish that email lists would die. I subscribe to them when necessary, like my school lists, or organizations where I know I won’t get needed info otherwise. I dislike the email clutter my school lists provide, for every one email I want to see there are 30 or so I don’t.
I agree with Laura and Steve, they don’t fit me either. I would rather converse through blogs, Twitter, LSW, and even Facebook these days. Email is an important communication tool but it can also be difficult enough to manage when you’re not trying to sift the stuff you don’t want to see.
I have made the observation that librarians are very attached to their email lists, maybe it’s because I’m new to working in libraries. I guess I have to admit that coming from a blog world before I got into libraries and library school, I didn’t understand the list thing at all. I even found it strange when one of my professors included the subscription to an email list as part of a writing assignment we had to do. Now I expect it but wish we can move away from it.
I still subscribe to several email listservs. However, I see two problems with them (in addition to the problems Steve mentioned above about digests). First, the ones from ALA are closed to nonmembers and I think that this limits discussion. Second, for some reason, they seem more formal to me than other online ways to communicate. I feel that I can only post something very important to such a list – something that could be useful to everyone on the list. I feel more comfortable posting on discussions in Ning or commenting on blogs. Do you think that listservs seem more formal?
Laura, I have that feeling about PubLib (and all social spaces) as well. It doesn’t invalidate PUBLIB for its community… it’s kind of a takes-a-village approach.
What I also find interesting, however, is that the decision appears broader than publib… it’s as if list technology = one generation, twitter/blogs another.
The points about only posting formal information of use to the entire list are intriguing. Twitter reduces the harm of silliness by brevity; blogs approach that differently, because you aren’t required to read every post. In the same way, when I share a link in Facebook the imposition on my friends is minimal. They can skip over it. Nobody ever says “you’re cluttering Facebook.” (Sometimes I have unsubscribed to Twitter feeds I considered “clutter” — which wasn’t about content, it was about dominating the feed. New York Times feeds to twitter really irked me.)
Do these bells ring for thee?
Thank goodness, it’s not just me. If there is something I hate about e-mail lists are the people who can’t seem to figure out how to trim their posts. It does make for a lot of inbox clutter. I have one listserv I follow (NewLib), and I am on the verge of dropping precisely because it is messy, cluttered, and as of late, pretty much irrelevant (at least to me). I know some lists provide good information at times, but I am very reluctant to add any.
I prefer blogs myself and pretty much anything else with a feed I can add. As for the irritating bloggers who add Twitter to their blogs, I second the comment of if I wanted to read it, I would get into Twitter. At this point, I will probably start unsubscribing those people from my feeds. I really could not care less if you are going to the bathroom or cleaning up your cat’s coughed up hairball.
Anyhow, best, and keep on blogging.
It interesting that mailing lists surged in popularity in the late ’90s, when a lot of the sort of communication that they provide was formerly handled by netnews. Unfortunately, netnews just didn’t scale well, and it was too easily hijacked by the spammers.
I think that the mailing lists could be replaced by the “forums” that so many sites are creating, if only they could be integrated easily into the way I read other sorts of things.
The big problems with RSS are:
1) It’s narrow. There are things that I miss if I only ever use the RSS feed(s) for a site.
2) It’s flat (much like the comments on a blog). There’s no way to parallel the branching that occurs on a mailing list.
3) It’s too focused. In general, I end up subscribing to two or three RSS feeds for a given blog: the postings and the comments thereon are separate feeds usually.
Now, these aren’t necessarily problems with RSS, but they are certainly problems with the way RSS is used.
On a separate track, I generally tend to treat mailing lists as “read-only”. I don’t really post things very often, even when I might be the ‘expert’ in an area. This is probably related, to some extent, to Isabelle’s suggesting that mailing lists “feel” more formal.
Heidi is right: “librarians are very attached to their email lists.” Email lists are still very widely used. AUTOCAT, the catalogers list, has over 4,000 subscribers, for example. It has a huge amount of traffic. The Archives list is also very heavily used, and someone mentioned INNOPAC for Innovative system users. Several consortia and special groups such as ATLA (American Theological Library Assoc.) use email lists exclusively. Until the PEOPLE on these lists move to other tools in a big way, I still regard the lists as the place to go for many answers.
I am frustrated by the same things that others have mentioned in relation to clutter, keeping up, and the sheer number of messages. I have moved all the lists that have this capability to RSS for reading, and I just filter the email and only open it if I want to post or respond. Yes I wish these lists would move to other platforms.
The thing is, most of my colleagues have not adopted 2.0 tools into their regular routine. Many librarians (and other people too) still don’t even know how to manage their email effectively, and things like RSS are still too foreign. But at least they read the email. If you want to communicate with these people it has to be on email.
I absolutely don’t understand the whole “don’t clutter up the list” mentality. What good is any discussion list without discussion or participation? It simply becomes an announcement list, or a list with questions and no answers. I am constantly frustrated by the tendency for people to respond to questions privately instead of on the list because they don’t want to clutter it up, or their post isn’t a formally composed statement. I posted a rant about this on my blog: http://tinyurl.com/33cnlr
I saw your comment on publib and I think you are right in a number of ways. I unsubscribed from one list because there were too many flamewars. Another because one guy asked all the questions.
However, I am more likely to read discussion lists than things like Twitter because that is what is acceptable at my place of work. We had a meeting which ended up being (in part) an explanation of what an RSS feed is.
Personally, I like asynchronous discussion as well as synchronous, but I find email lists annoying. Maybe it’s the format, getting it through email, rather than participating in a web forum (which I prefer). If PubLib were done as a forum (like Vanilla or vBulletin or whatever), I’d at least like the format more. (The content is another matter.)
Neff, I agree on the format thing, too. I almost wonder if that wouldn’t bring in different voices…
I like both electronic (email) lists and blogs. Some people can’t access the web easily or maybe with a fast enough connection to use the blogs.
But as long as the information is there, either is fine with me.
Like Isabelle and Patricia, I find that the lists I’m subscribed to are in practice quite formal affairs, more for announcements than discussion or new ideas. It’s now started to feel natural that announcements come to email, while discussion comes to my Google Reader account. To the point that when I realised that the feeds on one of my Ning groups appear to be email only it was quite disconcerting.
I am going to go against the grain and admit my love for listservs and email in general even though I’m a young’n. I like it as a form of communication – I like that people generally bother to have full thoughts and complete sentences and something sincere to share/discuss. I like that it comes to my inbox and I can choose to handle/file it in whatever way works for me. I like that generally speaking I know who sent it. I agree with the poster who said that listservs are more formal, and that’s one of the reasons I like them. I’m not opposed to the informality as a concept and I think it’s great that there is that community, but I don’t find the community building chatter to be particularly helpful to be in my work, which is what I want out of a listserv.
On a more local and practical level – if something goes out to my work listserv I feel confident it will be read. I’m less sure they’re going to bother keeping up with my delicious tags or the discussion tab in the wiki. But that’s a matter of acculturation.
I am not a fan of forums in general. I think they get more unruly more quickly. You have to bother to sign up for yet another thing that you have to log in to every time you want to access it. Listservs use something you already have (your email) instead of making you go somewhere new, set up a new account, have a new password to memorize, etc. Email comes to me, I have to go to a forum. Forums encourage a lot more empty chatter. “Yeah, me too.” “Well said!” Which is more a waste of my time than the other clutter and keeping up mentioned above.
I love blogs, wikis, and RSS feeds and many of the other collaborative tools listed above. But not forums, twitter, or other social networking sites. I don’t dislike them, I just haven’t found them to be a good fit for my style of working.
I’m old. I am not being ironic here, I am a good decade older than Karen. I was used to being, well, a “cybergoddess.” Probably not any more.
I love my online discussion lists. I love the way they go and flow, and I love being a part of their communities. I don’t do Twitter or FaceBook or Second Life, just never quite got there. I do have a blog, although it has nothing to do with my professional life, and I read many blogs, usually via RSS. But it annoys me that the conversation only goes in comments, and often ends too quickly, and that I have to say the same thing in several comments. On a list, I can say it to everyone, and we can continue the conversation, or not.
This is a fascinating discussion for me, however, and interesting to see how other folks view it differently.
Well, I’m kind of in between, both age-wise and preference-wise. I’m subscribed to many fewer lists lately, partially because of the reasons already mentioned (irrelevant discussion, flamewars, same discussions over and over and over). But, also partially because of the need to control information overload — if I add in blogs and facebook to my online activities, something else has to go. And, partially because many of the people whose opinions I’m interested in are not on lists, so I go read them where they are.
(And, thank you, Angel! — I’ve unsubbed to every blog that incorporates Twitter feeds as well.)
At this point my experience with email listservs is through my program (2nd year MLIS at UW’s iSchool), and they do look archaic to me. I have rules for handling my email so I don’t get overwhelmed by new messages, but it does come across as a format that could be more rich but isn’t.
I’ve seen two types of listservs: administrative, almost exclusively announcements with rather low conversation among the members; and social, with lots of conversation, inside jokes, and personalities come through. On the social front, I think a fair amount of social apps facilitate activity better than on listservs and provide a richer experience for those involved. But in my setting, us students have time bounds to our membership that seem not to agree with how most social software networks are set up.
My biggest personal gripe with listservs is that members have to consciously edit their replies so that long trains of quoted text don’t follow their posts. I suppose this contributes to listservs looking clunky.
In looking over comments here, the question almost reminds me of battles over instant messaging clients, where you want all your friends to roll over to your client of choice. Seems like attempts to port a listserv over to some social app would find similar difficulties.
Age: 46
Email lists subscribed to: 7 (“own” 2 library ones, subscribe to 3 other library ones, 1 church, 1 dog-breed)
Ning account/forum: 1 (which I quit reading as I never quite understood the format)
Facebook: 1 account, 1 library group, a lot of fun
Blog: see link above
All serve different purposes, I think. I would really like to move the two lists I “own” to Facebook, but the list subscribers (about 150–these are lists of small interest) don’t yet equal the Facebook folks (48 total).
I really like email for personal communication that either needs more documentation or more detail, but I really don’t like discussion lists. I subscribe to a bunch, mostly because I don’t want to miss anything. However, I filter them to a folder, and only look at them once a week. As far as communication tools that I really do use: I keep Twitter up most of the time, and go through my RSS reader several times a day. I check into Facebook maybe once per day, and mostly if I get an emailed message that someone has done something with my profile. I keep instant messaging up all day (through Meebo), but don’t really do much communicating with that. It’s just another available channel. I can’t stand the phone but will use it with folks who prefer that to all other options. FWIW!
I, for one, can’t stand email discussion lists. Maybe it’s just how my mind works. In my mind, email is for one-to-one correspondence. Messages that are TO ME go there, and I’m almost constantly connected to my email so that I can respond to these messages efficiently. List messages gum up this process for me. They just don’t seem to belong in the same place as the rest of my email, which is far more urgent than discussion messages. I’d hate to see my “real†messages get lost among the chorus of list messages!
I understand the desire for a sort of “one stop shopping,†which is what I think a lot of listserv lovers are looking for. Go to your email account, get everything you need right there. But for me, I like to keep correspondence separate from open discussion. But, like I said, maybe it’s just because of how my mind works and how I like to organize my life and workflow, and the kind of priority level I have to assign the different messages I get every day. .
That said, like others who have replied here, I subscribe to the ListServs I need to. But I rarely (if ever) add my voice to the discussion.
The thing that is too bad about the whole discussion is that I’d hate to see the discussions that go on in our profession get splintered and one-sided because one group of would-be participants is in Listserv land and the rest are all over the place using other tools. It doesn’t bode well for getting a balanced view of all sides of our professional issues into the discussions.
[…] at Free Range Librarian , Karen Schneider launched a good discussion with a post on “Email lists: are they last-century?” I commented there, but have more to say here (OK, this is partially because I’m delighting in […]
I don’t read email discussion lists as fervently as I did in the 90s and earlier in this decade. With the blogging librarian boom and social networking explosion, I found I had less time for “boring” listserv discussions. There are a few I still find interesting and useful, such as SERIALST, but for the most part, messages sit unread for months until I finally delete them.
The use and usefulness of listservs verses some other tool came up many times in discussions about contracting for a new webhosting service for a professional organization in which I am a member. The committees and the executive board do almost all of their communication via email listserv technology, and almost everyone agreed that they would rather have something that pushed messages out to interested parties than having to pull them from somewhere like a forum, wiki, or other two-point-oh tech.
So, given all that, I’d say that the email discussion list is a dinosaur for broad groups of people connected only by the list, but for focused groups, it’s still a viable tool.
Anna, it sounds as if lists still work well for broadcast, or for specialized uses. On this I agree wholeheartedly. I recently started a very-small-group list, and there really wouldn’t be any other way to communicate. I am sensing that the day of the multi-thousand-member “discussion” list is nearing its end, though like most technologies, if it works for the right critical mass it won’t go away for a while.
Karen, I’m coming into this “thread” (can we call them that on a blog?) a month late and several dollars short. But what IS the difference between this thread and the same sequence of messages on a list, whether web4lib or others? We still have a number of people commenting/posting, and a larger number (presumably) reading, and a larger yet number ignoring it all, even if they have an RSS feed or a list subscription.
It’s partly the diffuse nature of ideas, the idea that a person or small group of people, rather than a list, curates a discussion (whether tightly or laissez-faire), and that the discussion flows across other discussion places. The discussion evolves differently, in part because all voices can be heard.
Meant to link to a September post
http://www.dancohen.org/2007/09/21/digital-campus-13-everything-in-moderation/
, where Dan Cohen says “Is the moderated environment of email discussion lists still the best way for scholars to communicate with others in their field? Or is the time ripe to move those conversations onto blogs and less mediated and more open formats? That’s the debate in the feature segment of this week’s Digital Campus podcast.“