Conservation Distribution List

[Cary Karp <ck@NRM.SE>]

Here is the latest version of Walter Henry's information file about
the services that he maintains. The Conservation DistList is one of
the two distribution lists which are expected to fulfill the role
which was originally envisioned for MICAT-L. (The second list is
CIMCIM-L, about which detailed information was mailed to MICAT-L
a little over a week ago. An additional reminder about how to
subscribe to it will be posted before MICAT-L is closed.)

Please note that the MICAT- L archives are available through CoOL.


Conservation DistList
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Date: 1995/06/14 15:52:29

Conservation DistList
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Since 1987, a steadily growing group of conservation people, including
bench conservators, curators, scientists, and administrators, have been
meeting on the Internet to share technical information, news,
rumour-control etc relating to the conservation of museum, library,
and archive information.

Because it happens that libraries, having been involved in computer
operations for several decades, joined the Net earlier than museums,
the library world has been better represented in the list than museum
people, but as the group grows, and more institutions and individuals
find their way to the Net, the scope of participation is broadening to
include all spheres of conservation.

Our numbers include more than 1400 people from at least 27 countries,
including conservators from several specialities, scientists, curators,
archivists, librarians, and academics from a number of disciplines.

There are currently three initiatives:

1) An online forum, known as the Cons DistList. A moderated digest,
this is issued as often as participants send in material to be
distributed, usually once or twice a week. It is open to anyone who is
professionally involved--and this is interpreted very liberally--with
the conservation of cultural materials.  Students in library, archives,
and museum studies, or conservation science are also welcome. Typical
topics include queries and answers about technical issues, attempts to
clear up rumors, announcements of events of interest to the
participants, etc. It is relatively informal and geared toward quick
dissemination / discussion, rather than carefully developed argument.
Less formal than a newsletter, but a bit more so than a bulletin board,
the DistList has been in operation since 1987 (it is the second oldest
library/museum list on the Net).  Back instances of the DistList are
are available via CoOL (see below).  In order to participate in the
DistList, you must a) fill out a very short questionnaire so that I can
add your address to the ConsDir (see below) and b) send me a message
via email, so that I can be sure that your address works.

2) A directory of email addresses for conservation professionals, known
as the ConsDir.  It is updated regularly and made available via CoOL
(see below).

3) Conservation OnLine (CoOL).  This is a collection of full-text
databases covering a wide variety of conservation and preservation
issues.  It uses WAIS (Wide Area Information Server), Gopher, and World
Wide Web technology to provide quick access to information from
anywhere on the Internet.

I hope you will join us in what has been a most enjoyable and fruitful
experiment. The value of the networks increase as the community of
users grows.

These activities are taking place on the Internet, a world-wide
Network of Networks (Bitnet, UUCP, etc.). If you have an account
on any machine on the Net, please get in touch with me at
consdist-request@lindy.stanford.edu. If you are not sure how to do this,
please feel free to phone me and I'll do what I can to get you
going.

If you are on Compuserve or MCImail, instructions for getting to
me are given below. If you are on one of the other commercial
services, call or write and I will be happy to show you how to
send and receive Internet mail (alas, there are several
commercial services that do not connect to the Net).


Walter Henry
Conservation Lab
Stanford University Libraries


consdist-request@lindy.stanford.edu <Internet>
415-725-1140 <NetOfLastResort>

>From Compuserve:

     send to ">INTERNET:consdist-request@lindy.stanford.edu"

>From MCIMail

     at the "To:" prompt type "Walter Henry (EMS)"
     at the "EMS:" prompt type "internet"
     at the "Mbx:" prompt type "consdist-request@lindy.stanford.edu"