Difference between revisions of "MailingList"

Revision as of 17:48, 14 May 2021

About the Code4Lib mailing list

The Code4Lib community is supported by many things, and one of those things is a mailing list. This page describes the list.

The mailing list is open to anybody, and the list goes unmoderated, but only subscribers are authorized to post messages.

The list's original and official charter/purpose may have gone to Big Byte Heaven, but an initial draft, written in December 2003, included:

 The purpose of code4lib is to provide a forum for discussion
 of computer programming in the area of libraries and
 information science. Subscribers are welcome to discuss the
 application of particular programming languages and to
 discuss the general issues, techniques, philosophies, and
 even history of programming for and in libraries. There are
 other venues such as web4lib, xml4lib, perl4lib, but this
 list hopes to encourage the holistic use of programming
 languages, and to provide useful discussion on how to select
 the right tool for your particular job. Hopefully everyone
 will learn a thing or two along the way...

Now-a-days, the list is much more general and about the overall use of computers in libraries. As of this writing, there are about 3,800 subscribers, mostly from the United States, and the list sees about half a dozen postings per week.

The mailing list is an implementation of the venerable LISTSERV software, and it is generously hosted by the Digital Library Federation (DLF) / Council on Library & Information Resources (CLIR).

The easiest way to subscribe, unsubscribe, and manage your subscription is through the use of the LISTSERV home page at CLIR:

 https://lists.clir.org/cgi-bin/wa?A0=CODE4LIB

You can circumvent the LISTSERV interface through email. For example, to subscribe send a subscription request to listserv@lists.clir.org:

 mailto:listserv@lists.clir.org?body=subscribe%20code4lib

You can also send an unsubscribe message to the same address:

 mailto:listserv@lists.clir.org?body=unsubscribe%20code4lib

To post a message to the list, send an email message to code4lib@lists.clir.org:

 mailto:code4lib@lists.clir.org

When posting, please be respectful of other people's thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. Also, in this day and age of anonymous and obtuse email addresses, you are encouraged (but not required) to sign any postings with your real name and affiliation.

The mailing list is archived in at least a few places:

 * https://lists.clir.org/cgi-bin/wa?A0=CODE4LIB
 * https://www.mail-archive.com/code4lib@lists.clir.org/info.html
 * http://serials.infomotions.com/code4lib/

Many times people desire to send job postings to the list. This is not discouraged, but it might be better if they were submitted to the jobs site:

 https://jobs.code4lib.org/

Once submitted there, the posting gets forwarded to the mailing list as well made available in a browsable format.

At the same time, many people do not want to see the job postings, and most people can configure that as well. One way to do that is to log into the LISTSERV website and configure your "topics". Once you have created a username/password combination, you can do the configuration:

 http://lists.clir.org/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=CODE4LIB

Alternatively, if you do not want to get the job postings, you can configure the same thing via email:

 mailto:listserv@lists.clir.org?body=set%20code4lib%20topics:%20-jobs

Unfortunately, if you subscribe to the list via digest mode, then filtering by topics is not an option. From the LISTSERV documentation:

 Finally, it is important to note that topics are active only when
 your subscription is set to MAIL. Digests are indexes always
 contain all the postings that were made because the same digest
 is prepared and sent to all the subscribers.

Finally, there is a real live person behind the mailing list. If you have any questions or need technical support, then don't hesitate to drop me -- Eric Lease Morgan -- an email message at emorgan@nd.edu.