Listserves Are a 21st Century Tool With Advantages Over ‘Web 2.0 Social Media’ #2

Some blog followers might be interested in a recent post “Listserves Are a 21st Century Tool With Advantages Over ‘Web 2.0 Social Media’ #2” [Hake (2012)]. The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: In an article “Where Do Listservs. . . . [[sic – “listserv” is a trademark of L-soft , the generic term is “listserve”]]. . . . . Fit in a Social Media World? The networking tool of the 90s is starting to show its age,” law librarian Greg Lambert implied that listserves are a “20th Century Tool in the 21st Century” which clog up the email inbox.

But if Greg had subscribed to discussion lists running on LISTSERV software by L-Soft [see at http://www.lsoft.com/ and http://www.lsoft.com/catalist.html ] he could have subscribed in the NOMAIL mode, thus receiving NO MAIL from the list while being free to browse the archives and post at his leisure, thus saving time, hard drive space, and sanity.

More generally, that Web 2.0 social media tools are much more efficient than listserves is problematic at best - see, e.g., Gerald Grow’s (2009) list of 11 advantages of listserves at http://bit.ly/wBApNg (scroll down about half way). ************************************************

To access the complete 14 kB post please click on http://bit.ly/y2M2t3.

Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Honorary Member, Curmudgeon Lodge of Deventer, The Netherlands
President, PEdants for Definitive Academic References
which Recognize the Invention of the Internet (PEDARRII)

rrhake@earthlink.net
Links to Articles: http://bit.ly/a6M5y0
Links to SDI Labs: http://bit.ly/9nGd3M
Blog: http://bit.ly/9yGsXh
Academia: http://iub.academia.edu/RichardHake
Twitter https://twitter.com/#!/rrhake

“It is not enough to observe, experiment, theorize, calculate and communicate; we must also argue, criticize, debate, expound, summarize, and otherwise transform the information that we have obtained individually into reliable, well established, public knowledge.”
John Ziman. 1969. “Information, Communication, Knowledge,” Nature 224:
318-324; abstract online at http://bit.ly/cNPB1d.


REFERENCES [URL’s shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 04 March 2012.]
Hake, R.R. 2012. “Listserves Are a 21Century Tool With Advantages Over ‘Web 2.0 Social Media’ #2,” on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/y2M2t3. Post of 4 Mar 2012 13:08:07-0800 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to several discussion lists.