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Much of the emerging world of online information systems is complex and expensive. Interacting with the millions of people and computers on the Internet can be a daunting task even for those with some degree of computer literacy. Mailing lists, however, offer vast amounts of information to both the experi enced user and novice at almost no cost and with very little effort.
Mailing lists represent a cross between Electronic Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) and Electronic Mail (e-mail). In the simplest case a Bulletin Board is a program that organizes messages sent in (posted) by participants. Others can retrieve and respond to those messages by logging on to the system.
E-mail is used for inter nal communications by many organizations and it is also avail able publicly to anyone with access to the major computer networks. A subscriber to CompuServe, for example, can send e-mail to millions of people on CompuServe, Prodigy, America Online, Microsoft Network, GEnie, Delphi and, of course, the Internet.
One point of confusion is that the term Bulletin Board is also applied to the thousands of com puter systems set up by individ uals and organizations that offer many services in addition to the classic Bulletin Board software on which they were initially based. Many of these systems are also connected to the Internet for e-mail transmission as well.
On the Internet, bulletin boards are referred to as Newsgroups while they are called Forums on CompuServe.
A "mailing list" is a program that manages messages like a bulletin board but it distributes them automatically by e-mail to "subscribers". Generally anyone with e-mail can subscribe to these lists by sending a message to the appropriate system. In contrast, to use one of the Internet newsgroups you must have an account on the Internet &emdash; not merely an e-mail connec tion provided by a commercial service. To receive communica tions from a mailing list, any e-mail connection will work. There is no charge to be on a mailing list. "Subscribing" is merely a way to compile a distribution list.
While Internet news groups and mailing lists are separate collec tions of messages, many are "cross posted" so the same set of messages is available through either route. The two messaging systems developed because the Internet was initially based on DEC mini-computers while IBM main frames were connected through BITNET. The DEC equipment could accommodate the highly interactive nature of a bulletin board while the IBM systems were batch oriented and could support only mailing lists.
Not all mailing lists are created equal. Unmoderated lists send all message to all subscribers with out human intervention. Messages sent to a moderated list, on the other hand, are screened by the manager (moderator) and will be posted or not depending on the his or her decision. Most mailing lists are open and anyone can subscribe while others are restricted to individuals with a specific inter est and ability or need to partici pate. In summary, Moderated lists screen messages while Closed lists screen subscribers.
The programs that manage mail ing lists are not all the same but there is one version called a "listserv" that is by far the most common. If you learn how to interact with the listserv system, you will have access to literally thousands of mailing lists which utilize this software.
In the case of any open list where anyone can subscribe, there is no reason for the manager (a human being) to read your subscription request so a computer processes it automati cally. Consequently, your request must be prepared in a very exact but straightforward format or the program will not understand the message.
After sending in a request, you will receive either an acknowl edg ment that you are now a sub scriber and will begin to receive messages or an error message indicating something was wrong with your request so it could not be processed.
Once you have subscribed to a mailing list, the number of mes sages you receive depends entirely on the activity of the par ticular list. Some generate three or four messages a day while others can produce dozens so you have to be selective to avoid e-mail overload.
A listserv pro gram will accept numerous commands in addition to "subscribe". At some time you may want to take your name off the list so you will need to know the "signoff" command. When you subscribe, you will receive information concerning other functions such as receiving a list of subscribers, searching archived messages, etc. If you are going on vacation you may want to suspend your messages temporarily and there is a com mand to do that.
There are many other mailing list programs (e.g. Majordomo) but listservs are the most common. If you encounter another type, you will usually be given instructions on how to communicate with it.
Most mailing lists have two addresses &emdash; one is the address you use to communicate with the program and the other is the address you use to send mes sages which the program will distribute to subscribers. The most common mistake is to send a subscription request to the sec ond address where everyone on the list will receive it.
Of course, you will not receive the message and will not realize there is a problem since you do not even exist as far as the computer is concerned; your subscription request was sent to the wrong address.
While both addresses are located on the same computer, messages sent to the listserv address are intercepted and interpreted by the program while others are added to the message file and mailed to subscribers.
Small non-listserv mailing lists operated by an individual may only have one address. The man ager reads and responds to all requests and posts messages to the system manually.
Since there are thousands of mailing lists in operation, how do you find those matching your interests whether these are business or personal issues. Because of the uncon trolled nature of the Internet there is no place you can go for a comprehensive list.
One possibility is to send e-mail to one of several addresses that will send back a "list of lists" although each one of these lists is incomplete. While this seems like a reasonable approach, these lists might be several hundred pages long! A better approach is to ask associ ates what they use and to read one of the Internet books that provide details of many of the most popular lists. Professional, hobby and lifestyle publications are increasingly publishing information on relevant mailing lists and bulletin boards.
While CLMA will undoubtedly sponsor a mailing list in the future, there are others covering laboratory topics available today. One titled "medlab-l" is operated by Pat Letendre, M.D. at the University of Alberta. The list typically generates 4-6 mes sages per day covering technical and management topics of inter est to laboratory personnel. To subscribe to this list send a mes sage to the following address
listserv@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu
The subject is not important although your e-mail system may require you to put something in this field. The body of the message should consist of a sin gle line
subscribe medlab-l_ yourfirstname_ yourlastname
where the (_) sign is used here to indicate a space.
This message informs the listserv program at this address that you want to subscribe to a particular mailing list (medlab-l); the program may manage many such lists so you have to tell it which one. The system will extract your e-mail address from the return address in your message and it will pick up your name from the last two words in the message.
After you receive a welcoming message with instructions, you will be free to send your own messages and questions to all subscribers by sending e-mail to
medlab-l@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu
Notice the difference: the computer address (following the @) is identical in both messages. When sending commands to the system, you use "listserv" as the ID but when mailing to all subscribers, you use "medlab-l" (the name of this particular list).