Thanks David and others. Good points, all.
More than anything, I suppose I was trying to get a handle on how *active* most list members are -- not only as contributors but as readers as well. I for one, will admit to deleting most posts but, to David's point, and owing to the diverse membership of ARSC, not all threads will appeal to all members.
Fair enough.
In the interests of honesty, I should say that most replies in favor of the current listserv system are from highly active contributors. This would include, but is not limited to, folks who spend a generous amount of time at digital workstations, (presumably) making them more likely receive ARSClist messages "as they happen". To the contrary, at least one member mentioned that trying to catch up to the list, in cases where one has been away from the computer for expended periods of time, is next to impossible.
Another point: Because most replies in favor of keeping a listserv came from active contributors, it is perhaps not surprising that there was little mention of the cumbersome search function and the fact that one must click each individual post as s/he browses though a conversation in the online archives. (The solution being the ability to view threads as entire "conversations" rather than isolated emails.)
I guess the question is, how much are we tailoring this thing to our own needs and conveniences vs. perhaps making the list's contents easier to navigate for the greater archival/collector/discographer/etc community? No, this is not a rhetorical question. I'm asking because an answer in either direction will, in turn, answer almost all of my questions above.
Seems we're providing a bountiful wealth of knowledge to the public...provided they're wiling to cross a swamp to get it. (Again, this goes back to the question about whom our target audiences are for these posts.)
again thanks, Brandon
_______________________________________ Brandon Burke Assistant Archivist for Audiovisual Collections Hoover Institution Archives Stanford University Stanford, CA 94305-6010 voice: 650.724.9711 fax: 650.725.3445 email: burke@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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