Friday Talk - 2

The Department of Library and Information Science (MyDLIS) under the aegis of MULISSA – Mysore University Library and Information Student Association organised a demonstration cum lecture on ‘ListServs’ on 2nd November 2007 by Dr. M. Chandrashekara, Reader, Department of Library and Information Science, University of Mysore, Mysore.
Dr. Chandrashekara explained the concept of ‘ListServs’ and its usage as group discussion forums. ‘ListServ’ is an electronic forum which facilitates online communication. He gave a step by step demonstration about ‘ListSevs’ to the students by taking ‘LISFORUM’ as an example. He said that one must first join the listserv as a member in order to send messages to the list. Members must also correspond with the listserv using the email address they subscribed to the list with. ‘LISFORUM’ is an moderated list in which moderators approves and prunes the messages. He opined that the challenges of a ‘ListServ’ include striking a balance between quality and participation, which can be achieved through careful planning and moderation. In his demonstration of ‘LISFORUM’, Dr. Chandrashekara explained its features including searching of archives, default settings etc. He drew the attention of the students towards various ListServs available in the field of Library and Information Science.
In order to encourage the participation in ListServ, a competition for the MLISc students was announced. The students of the current batch of MLISc in MyDLIS have to become members of LISFORUM and participate in the discussion. The best participant would be awarded with an attractive prize.
Moderators request to subscribe/unsubscribe members to the list or members can subscribe/unsubscribe themselves.
This has been the practice for many decades now. On 2nd of November Dr. M.Chandrashekara, Reader of the Department has given a talk on “Listservs”. In his talk he gave practical understanding of how Listservs are used, how to subscribe and unsubscribe listserv, and how to become acquainted with reading and posting of a message. In his talk he also listed the listservs available in LIS domain and emphasized the role of listservs in professional development. At the end he gave a practical demo on how to subscribe LIS-Forum. Who was to give a talk for about 45 minutes went up to 1 hour 15 minutes, with out the knowledge of the audiences. All the faculty members and the students immensely benefited from his talk.