[Web4lib] Are e-mail discussion lists still relevant?

Nancy nancy at thesmudge.com
Fri Jul 3 00:30:31 EDT 2009


The two technologies with which I most engage in discussions are email lists 
and message boards.
The lists give everyone's response an equal weight, which means I don't miss 
something valuable because it's not presented as enticingly as something 
posted by a greater wordsmith.

Both email lists and message boards are easy to interact with, but some 
versions of each of these types of technologies are more user friendly than 
others.

Nancy E. Sosna Bohm
Associate Librarian
Lake Forest College
sosna at lakeforest.edu



> -----Original Message-----
> From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org
> [mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of K.G. Schneider
>
> If you are engaging with peers, colleagues, friends, family, etc.
> (rather than simply having things "come to you"), then RSS is not quite
> as effective. It may point you to ongoing conversations but you will
> still have to use another tool to participate.
>
> I have found myself disengaging with RSS in some instances and going
> back to email because it was a more effective tool. That even includes
> some "read-only" behavior, such as commits for an open source project,
> news flashes, etc.
>





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