[12520] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
No PACS-L Mail
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Public-Access Computer Systems For)
Fri Oct 23 20:05:42 1998
Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 17:49:41 -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>
2 Messages, 114 Lines
*-----
From: Jack Kessler <kessler@well.com>
Subject: Re: No PACS-L Mail
Thom said -- Hi Thom,
>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 have subscribed to PACS-L since Charles Bailey days -- 1991
or before -- and I too have noticed the recent drop - off in
postings. I don't think it's the moderators' fault.
I think the postings became too narrow sometime back: very
detailed points about "this particular glitch" or "that
particular product update", of interest to the 2-3 people
involved in it but to no one else. This gets pretty boring, and
is better covered anyway, now -- as others point out in their
replies to Thom here -- in other specialized lists and in
vendors' websites and discussions.
Plenty of general policy questions have arisen in all of this --
for the professions involved as well as more broadly -- which
need to be addressed and discussed, as they were on PACS-L in its
beginnings. There are _more_ such questions now than there were
before: "digital information" is a much bigger and more complex
place than it was in 1989 -- PACS-L should not, like so many
other econferences, become so narrow that it surrenders its
general readership / user base to the pretty pictures on the Web.
Bailey offered us, back then (June 29, 1989),
"a computer conference dedicated to discussions of all
systems that libraries make available to patrons"
and promised,
"You can share information about services you offer,
products you use, projects you are engaged in, and things
that you have read. You can survey conference
participants about things that interest you. You can
float ideas and see what people think. And, of course,
you can stand on a soapbox and tell us your point of view."
But much of what I myself have seen recently on PACS-L has
involved only "products": hardware and software with which folks
are fiddling. Trouble is, this changes: even if you happen to be
among the few interested in a particular "product" or "product
problem" this week, by now you should know that it all will be
different next week. So it is hard to get too excited about
"discussing" it in an econference. Online vendor sites are
better. Besides, I would hate to think that PACS-L has become
what so many websites have become -- merely commercial - product
- and - service presentations and discussion groups.
Without more attention to the more general things -- Charles
Bailey's originally - promised "projects you are engaged in",
"things you have read", "ideas", "what people think", "point of
view" -- PACS-L could lose its general readership and be left
with just a few techies who now in fact go elsewhere for their
"how to" information. That's why the postings have dropped off,
I think.
Jack Kessler, kessler@well.sf.ca.us
*-----
From: Dan Lester <dan@84.com>
Subject: Re: No PACS-L Mail
At 06:27 PM 10/22/98 -0500, Public-Access Computer Systems Forum wrote:
[actually Vigdor said]
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!
Oh my goodness....a right wing cabal of moderators.....gee, Vigdor, if you
were correct, why did they allow such seditious content to be posted?
Actually, several other posters have answered the question clearly and
simply.....when I first joined PACS-L in early 1990, it was one of a very
few library technology lists...and maybe the only one. Let's see, there
was the late libpln-l, which had most of its content taken over by
libadmin, and circplus, and buslib-l, and so forth. I first started
cdromlan because at the time there were a lot of cdrom networking
questions on pacs-l and it seemed a separate list was needed. These
days cdromlan is almost moribund, NOT because of any moderation (there
isn't any), but because there aren't very many new things to discuss in
a dying business. And, as cdromlan has withered and go4lib has died,
web4lib has grown. That hardly seems surprising, does it? Lists have a
life cycle just like all other living organisms and organizations.
Also, besides the increasing specialization of topics on lists, the
number of librarians on the net has grown exponentially, so people want
to increasingly specialize their reading to just the things they "need to
know". They don't have time to read every blessed list relating to
libraries, even if they wanted to.
So, whether it is a "right wing cabal" or a "bunch of commie pinko
radicals" doesn't really matter....if the traffic isn't there, it just
isn't there.
cheers
dan
--
Dan Lester, 3577 East Pecan, Boise, ID 83716-7115 USA 208-383-0165
dan@84.com http://www.84.com/ http://www.idaholibraries.org/
http://library.idbsu.edu/ http://cyclops.idbsu.edu/ http://www.lili.org/
Sent me a postcard of a library yet? You'll get something nice in return.
