Current Awareness Services - Discussions Lists & Newsgroups

Email discussion groups or electronic mailing lists allow you to use email to communicate with a group of people with similar interests. These services function like a public forum, providing a place to ask questions, offer advice and exchange ideas with list subscribers. There are interest groups for almost every topic, with memberships ranging from a few to the thousands. The possibilities for sharing information for research, problem solving and recreation are enormous. All you need do is to become involved in a list is to send an email message to:

• the list administrator (a human being), or
• a list server - software responsible for the management and distribution of the mailing list to thousands of subscribers, commonly called "listservs".

Your email address will be added to the mailing list, and you will start to receive messages from the list. Participation is at your discretion, though it is often wise to "listen" to the discussion for a time before adding your contribution.

There are three main types of discussion lists:

• Open list : open to anyone and the messages are forwarded automatically without any human intervention
• Moderated list : messages are filtered through a human moderator who screens and possibly edits messages to be sure they are appropriate and on-topic
• Closed list : This may involve membership of a professional body, or enrolment/employment at the institution in question. You will be notified if you are not eligible to join a specific list

Many lists also have searchable archives of past discussions.

There are many discussion list directories to assist you in finding a suitable list on your topic.

Examples include (Note: all examples open in a new web page)

CataList - browse any of the 63,785 public LISTSERV lists on the Internet, or search for mailing lists of interest

JISCMail - National Academic Mailing List Service - electronic discussion lists for the UK Academic Community covering a vast range of subjects

Google Groups - contains the entire archive of Usenet discussion groups dating back to 1981. These discussions cover the full range of human discourse and provide a fascinating look at evolving viewpoints, debate and advice on every subject from politics to technology.

Yahoo! Groups - thousands of groups available ranging from personal communication groups to scientific groups.