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

[Walt Crawford]

That's true--but it's also true of blogs, fora, ejournals, what have you.

PACS-L was a pioneer, as was PACS Review. PACS Review formally died several
years after it actually died; so far, the list continues in a moribund
state. PACS Review's death doesn't mean ejournals are dead; it means that
particular ejournal had run its course.

I sometimes have to remember that, though the fora/forums I'm theoretically
in charge of aren't really happening and while I find that many
library-related forums don't do very well, that's all--at best--anecdata,
anecdotes pretending to be data: It doesn't mean forums don't work
beautifully elsewhere. Ditto blogs. Ditto lists. Ditto wikis--where a bunch
of library-related ones never did draw multiple authors, but a few work
beautifully.

-walt crawford-

On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 10:16 AM, <bgsloan2 at yahoo.com> wrote:

>
>
> I think one's perception of the relevance of e-mail discussion lists
> depends a lot on which lists you're looking at.
>
> If you looked at lists like collib-l, LIBLICENSE, or Web4Lib, you might
> conclude that discussion lists are alive and well
>
> But if you looked at a list like PACS-L you'd probably conclude that e-mail
> lists are a dying, if not already dead, medium. That list used to be a
> vibrant forum for discussion. Now it's moribund, with no discussion
> whatsoever...only 29 postings in the last three months of fiscal year 2009,
> and all were announcements. Contrast this with Web4Lib which has probably
> had more than 29 postings on just this one thread in less than a week.
>
> The LIBADMIN list is similar. There used to be a lot of discussion there,
> but now when I get a post from that list my reaction is something along the
> lines of "Oh, I'd sorta forgotten LIBADMIN still existed".
>
> There's another list that deals with a popular library topic that saw only
> 100 posts for the first six months of 2009. Almost all of those posts were
> announcements (and a fair number were off-topic advertisements). There is
> virtually no discussion, and this list has more than 900 subscribers.
>
> Bernie Sloan
>
> --- On Mon, 6/29/09, B.G. Sloan <bgsloan2 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > From: B.G. Sloan <bgsloan2 at yahoo.com>
> > Subject: [Web4lib] Are e-mail discussion lists still relevant?
> > To: web4lib at webjunction.org
> > Date: Monday, June 29, 2009, 10:34 PM
> >
> > Young, Jeffrey R. Change or Die: Scholarly E-Mail Lists,
> > Once Vibrant, Fight for Relevance. Chronicle of Higher
> > Education. June 25, 2009.
> > http://beta.chronicle.com/article/Change-or-Die-Scholarly/46962/
> >
> > The intro paragraph:
> >
> > "Once they were hosts to lively discussions about academic
> > style and substance, but the time of scholarly e-mail lists
> > has passed, meaningful posts slowing to a trickle as
> > professors migrate to blogs, wikis, Twitter, and social
> > networks like Facebook."
> >
> > Several quotes from librarians...
> >
> > Bernie Sloan
> > Sora Associates
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Web4lib at webjunction.org
> > http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/
> >
> >
>
>
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