FILT4LIB listserv & Splitting the list (and more info on FILT4LIB)

[Brian Horakh]

ATTENTION: at the bottom of this message is a little blurb about myself. I
never knew that you had to fill out a resume and be qualitified to run a
listserv?? (You'd be amazed at the messages I received) so i'm
attaching it to the bottom this message.

It seems this topic (Filtering) has the educational cyber-community split
into two groups (simply those who do and those who don't). In my
opinion,  this thread should either be squashed into oblivion by the
listmaster  (which I think would be a BIG mistake) or another listserv
[FILT4LIB] should be formed. 

Most web4lib subscribers are not as concerned with the legal/technicial
aspects of filtering, for various reasons. I have had many complaints
and people in my organization who are discussing unsubscribing from
web4lib because of the flood of filtering content. These people in the
past have contributed valuable input into the list; and as far as I am
concerned, their unsubscribing could be viewed as a trend that other
valuable web4lib subscribers may follow. 

Although I am personally concerned with the technical aspects of
filtering (e.g., client vs server filtering) and the free speech issues that
pertain to this discussion. I am not going to (nor do I currently have the
capability to) censor the list. FYI: The Library that is hosting the FILT4LIB
listserv is NOT currently filtering on any content, except the Internet
stations in our childrens department, although it is possibly on the
horizon (we're planning to hold out till the very last). 

Anyway, I guess my point is that Web4lib has reached such a quantity
of people that if a particular thread was to double or triple the content of
the list (such as the filtering topic has). If people who would otherwise
be contributing (in other areas) begin to drop off the list, it will cause the
overall list content to go down until it is nothing more than a filtering
discussion. [ I do not want that to happen, since Web4lib has been most
valuable to me in other areas that were NOT related to filtering].

In the future, once the filt4lib list has been started, I plan to offer a web
archive version of it (searchable of course), and a replication of the
listserv across the usenet hierachy (haven't decided what to call the
group yet.) I will post both shortly (probably later this evening),

[NOTE: Public/Private NNTP servers are needed, if you have one, and
want to carry this listserv as a Usenet distribution, please let me know -
I can help you configure it, please do this instead of having clients
attach to my NNTP server, since it could be very bandwidth intensive]

-Brian Horakh
Escondido Public Library

I have had a lot of people send me mail wondering who I am, where is
Escondido, and why i'm splitting the Web4lib list. For those of you who
don't care, PLEASE stop reading now.

 First off,  I don't like to think of it as splitting the list, how about
"increasing the overall scope of" instead. Second, the list is currently
running on a Pentium 120mhz running Linux, with the backup list setup
(in case the main system goes down) to a Ultra Sparc running Solaris
2.5 - the list is handled by Berolist which is a GNU licensed alternative to
Listproc, it has several code hacks in it, to make it more robust,
however I have not released these back to the author yet (hope he's not
reading this:)

Escondido is a little city of about 150,000 people here in Northern San
Diego County, in California, in the United States of America, Planet Earth
(not quite sure how many people subscribe to Web4lib). Escondido has
made a real commitment to technology and was nominated into the
Smithsonian for its computer accomplishments (in which the Library
played a significant role). We have also been cited as a Novell Success
Story, Compaq Success Story, Cheyenne Success Story, as well has
having several articles published in the last year in various computer
magazines. Technically, our Library runs off several machines, I will list
the most important ones: We have a dual T1 connection to the Internet,
with a TIS gauntlet firewall running on a SGI Indy IP22, we have a IBM
RS6000 running the Ameritech Dynix Catalog, we also use a
combination of Novell Intranetware running  Webserver 3.0, Linux 2.0
running the Apache WebServer, Solaris 2.5 running Netscape
Enterprise server, SGI Indy running NCSA httpd, and a RS6000 which
handles our Library Catalog. We currently have 25 Pentium class public
Internet stations, and have plans to almost triple that number this year.
We have a robust and growing line of Internet services, with new
services coming available almost weekly, we have a dedicated group of
5 Web developers putting new content online for our patrons.

Who am I? Hi, my name is Brian Horakh, I am the system administrator
for the City of Escondido Public Library.  I have been working with the
City of Escondido for almost a year and a half and am currently
co-respondsible for over 1000 PCs, 35 servers, and 22 routers (I share
this respondsibility with one other fellow). I spend about 16 hours a day,
working/reviewing on Internet/Network technology of one sort or
another, and am on call 24 hours a day. I also program fluently in 16
different computer languages. The personal side of me is that  I'm
married, have one daughter, my favorite color is the off white of a
compaq computer case, and favorite keyboard is fujitsu. Previously
before coming to work for the City, Owned/ Operated/ Administrated an
Internet service, here in sunny San Diego. My personal goal is to see
Escondido Public Library become the model for how Libraries should
handle technology approaching the 21st century, (Nothing to major, eh?)
and to assist other organizations in embracing the new technologies
instead of rejecting them.

Sincerely,

-Brian Horakh


If you've actually read this far, here's a tip that will make you a happier
cyber-surfer; never read listserv posts longer than 10 lines, the person
is typically just rambling on about a subject they know nothing about! :)

FYI: We also offer a technical jokes list, send email to:
jokes-l at public.ci.escondido.ca.us with the subject of "subscribe"