[Web4lib] Default behavior for list archives searching

[K.G. Schneider]

One of my ALA gripes is how hard it is to search the Sympa lists.
(Supposedly Sympa is due for an upgrade in February.)

I just got information from someone at ALA that the default search
behavior for these lists is to limit searches to the current month.
Then, if you fiddle with the drop-downs, you can select some or all of
the months you want to search. 

1. Is there anyone out there familiar with that as default search
behavior for any general-use search engine? 

2. Looking at a list--e.g. Council--is this obvious to you as the
default behavior? http://lists.ala.org/wws/arc/alacoun 

3. How easy or hard is it for you to select all the months (given that
Council has had a list for a while, it's a good guinea pig)? I have
hands so small I can't reach the top numbers on a standard keyboard, and
I still had trouble selecting all months--the field was tiny and the
behavior felt awkward.

I tried exploring other lists from the United States examples listed
here: http://www.sympa.org/wiki/users/custom but didn't get very far --
many were behind walls, and most of the links were to general pages, not
the list pages. 

It's certainly in use by a lot of institutions, according to the list. 

K.G. Schneider
kgs at freerangelibrarian.com