[12515] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
No PACS-L Mail
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Public-Access Computer Systems For)
Thu Oct 22 20:42:13 1998
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 18:27:18 -0500
From: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <LIBPACS@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU>
To: PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU>
4 Messages, 138 Lines
*-----
From: Steven Thomas <sthomas@ckls.org>
Subject: Re: No PACS-L mail, 10/20/98
>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>On Tue, 20 Oct 1998, Public-Access Computer Systems Forum wrote:
>
>> There are no postings to PACS-L for Tuesday,
>> October 20, 1998.
>>
>> Jack Hall Associate Moderator, PACS-L
>
>Why do you think this is?
>
>Is PACS-L dead? Was is killed by moderation? It used to be one of the
>most vibrant list on the net. It seems to have died as moderation has
>increased. This is no comment on your moderation. It started to happen a
>long time ago.
>
>I'd like this posted to PACS-L for discussion.
>
>Thoughts?
>
>--Thom
Actually, this is not true, we got mail telling us there was no mail. How
does that compute?
Cordially,
Steve Thomas | Automation Services | Us hungry,...
The Orcish Librarian | Central Kansas Library System| need food,...
www.ckls.org/~sthomas/| 1409 Williams | Lots of books...
stevet@midusa.net Hme | Great Bend, KS 67530-4090 | Hmmm...
sthomas@ckls.org Wrk | ICQ# 8167121 |
*-----
From: Lawrence Auld <auldl@mail.ecu.edu>
Subject: Re: No PACS-L mail, 10/20/98
I, too, have been noticing PACS-L's shrinkage over the last year or
two. For a time it was a primary window on the professional world of
librarianship, but it serves that function less and less.
While moderation may be a factor contributing to the declining traffic,
I'm inclined to think that there are two greater causes. The first is
the proliferation of more-specialized listservs which have siphoned off
many items that, otherwise, would have been disseminated via PACS-L.
The second is the World Wide Web that provides information that,
previously, we would have sought with questions and follow-up responses
and discussion on PACS-L.
-- Lawrence Auld, Ph.D.
East Carolina University
Greenville, NC 27858-4353
*-----
From: Dana Pearson <dpearson@SPC.cc.tx.us>
Subject: Re: No PACS-L mail, 10/20/98
I've wondered this myself. I've been a subscriber since
1992 when my serials professor insisted the entire class
subscribe for the duration of the summer session. It was
very interesting from the perspective of a librarian-in-
training. Computer applications were of obvious import-
ance and it was an exciting window on the profession. My
thinking on many information technology issues was shaped
in the flow of the conversation that was interrupted only
as required by the academic calendar of the host, the Uni-
versity of Houston library.
I have saved countless messages over the years: information
about Internet resources, applications, policies, new lists
and electronic publications. I still do that; my folders
are thick with saved messages, but it seems that fewer are
from PACS-l. They are from Serialst, CJC-l, COLLDV-L, ACRL-
FRM, Libres, Liblicense-l, Diglib, DigLibn, Web4lib, and at
least a dozen others.
So I guess part of my answer would be that the conversation
that was PACS-l is broken up into a number of smaller
conver-
sations. And this is too bad in at least one respect. None
of the new lists seem to have replaced the focus that was
PACS-l, notwithstanding those messages posted to the other
lists that would have been more appropriate to PACS-l.
--
Dana Pearson
Director of Library Services dpearson@spc.cc.tx.us
1401 S. College
South Plains College 806-894-9611 x 2302
Levelland, TX 79336 806-894-5274 (fax)
*-----
From: Vigdor Schreibman <fins98@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: No PACS-L mail, 10/20/98
Vigdor Schreibman responds:
Moderators have one historical function on the Net, namely,
to assure an orderly traffic of messages. Nevertheless, the
opportunity offered by the moderator's position to control the
content can be seen time and time again to wreck the
engagement of participants that is most valuable, namely,
to bring to the surface the controversial issues of importance
and, with discipline, integrate the diverse interests engaged.
Constructive conflict is the root of the creative process, but
also, what moderators love to settle by unilateral means that
maintains the status quo of savage capitalism. Who can blame
them? In the last two decades the super rich have:
* imposed a savage captalist ideological embargo over the
press at the US Capital by declaring the First Amendment
freedom of the press irrelevant;
* taken total control over all the major channels of
communications of the nation by telecommunications reform
that assures the total monopolization of information and
communications systems;
* taken virtually all the gain in income during the same period;
and thereby
* increased their share of the nation's wealth by 100 percent,
leaving the middle class greatly dimminished and stagnant.
annihilating the poor; destroying families life in America,
disintegrating our cities, privatizing our schools,
libraries, and even the United Nations, while destroying
democracy in America.
The recent right wing cabal of moderators installed in PACS-L
has been right on board this savage capitalist train of behavior.
If indeed, PACS-L is dead, as the writer speculates, LONG LIVE
PACS-L!
Vigdor Schreibman -- FINS
Phone: (202)547-8715; Email: fins98@worldnet.att.net; Browse
Fins Information Age Library at URL: http://sunsite.utk.edu/FINS
