What is a Listserv and why would you like to belong to one?
Here is my very untechnical description of a Listserv. It is a group of people that belong on a mailing list. They discuss topics of interest via e-mail. Each e-mail is automatically sent to all members of the group so that members can follow along and/or add to the discussion or “thread”.
I belong to a few listservs such as the NewLib and PubLib lists. I have gained very valuable information and insight from these lists. Additionally, I have used them to ask questions about issues that we deal with at our library to find out how other libraries have dealt with the same issues. One example was getting help with a list of website designers and some sample “Requests for Proposals” for a website design.
I recently heard about a new Listserv that I thought some of you might be interested in trying. It is designed for children’s librarians’ and is called pubyac:
To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://mail.prairienet.org/mailman/listinfo/pubyac or, via email, send a message with subject or body ‘help’ to pubyac-request@lists.prairienet.org
It is supposed to be a very active list so you may get a lot of e-mails. I can help you to set up your e-mail program so that it will automatically put any posts from this listserv into a special in-box where you can them read them at a later time. It is supposed to be very good for children’s programming ideas, children’s and YA book stumpers, etc.
If you would like help setting yourself up with a listserv, suggestions about which listservs may be of interest to you, or how to set-up your e-mail as described above, please let me know and I will help you.
Mindy
