[Web4lib] Your preferred web-based e-mail site

[Carol Bean]

Hi Gillian,

I have been doing this for years, and have tried several.  We have  
been using Safe-mail.net because it is easy to sign up for, and one  
of the interfaces is very simple and easy to use (unfortunately, no  
longer the default, which makes setup a little more difficult).  My  
second choice was gmail, but when it required an invitation the  
signup process was just too messy.  Now that they've changed that,  
I'm going to give it a try once more (there were a few other issues,  
but they were minor compared to the sign-up hassle).  If you are  
interested, we have the old class materials on e-snips:

http://www.esnips.com/doc/a4522d31-c2d5-4796-a614-7512eee9e251/ 
Class4gmailhandout
http://www.esnips.com/doc/bab8f061-d6e5-47a8-b2aa-137d0da561ec/ 
class5EmailHandoutGM
http://www.esnips.com/doc/8007931f-6740-4b57-a309-0c5ef50afc76/ 
Class5EmailHandoutGMp2

although they probably need modifying by now.  Feel free to use them  
and/or modify them as needed for your purposes.  They're all creative  
commons licenses.

Carol Bean
beanworks at gmail.com

On Aug 20, 2007, at 4:29 PM, Gillian Wiseman wrote:

> I teach library patrons how to use e-mail. I've been teaching Yahoo  
> mail for years, but their sign-up process is difficult - for  
> example, finding a username that isn't already in use is a really  
> time-consuming process - and wading through all the "new features"  
> pages and the "set up your own webpage" pages, etc... can be  
> confusing to new users.
>
> I'm looking for suggestions for web-based mail that would be easy  
> to have patrons sign up for, are reliable, and have enough  
> similarity to yahoo/outlook/other e-mail programs that people can  
> transfer what they learn when they later want to use other tools.
>
> Most of my patrons are seniors or other new computer users who are  
> easily confused by complexity and obscurity as well as computer  
> terminology, so if there's a super simple or super basic site, that  
> would be my first choice.
>
> If you want to reply to me privately, I'll report my results to the  
> list.
>
> Gillian Wiseman
> Electronic Resources Librarian
> Waco-McLennan County Library
> (254)750-5944
> gwiseman at ci.waco.tx.us
>
> _______________________________________________
> Web4lib mailing list
> Web4lib at webjunction.org
> http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/