Annual Report
(2001)
ARLIS-L
Submitted by:
Kerri Scannell, ARLIS-L Moderator
scannel@uky.edu
859-257-4630
859-257-4662 (fax)
ARLIS-L serves as the primary means of communication for members of the Society as well as others interested in art librarianship and other art related topics (including students, librarians from other disciplines, and art librarians from other countries.) There are currently 1,463 members from 31 countries. The largest membership comes from the United States with 1,234 members, followed by Canada with 91 members, Great Britain (26), Australia (24), Netherlands (19), New Zealand (12), Israel (8), Belgium (6), Italy and Japan (4 each), and various other countries, including France, Ireland, Norway, Thailand, Germany, Estonia, China, Russian Federation, Peru, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates.
During 2001 the listserv went through many changes. In January Mary Molinaro stepped down as moderator and the position was taken over by Kerri Scannell. Later in the year, the University of Kentucky began updating their email servers, which required the listserv to make some changes in how it operated.
Beginning in November the listserv moved from fully moderated to partially moderated. All postings from current subscribers (anyone who was a subscriber before November 1) were sent to the list automatically, by-passing the moderator. New members from November 1 onward are now added by the moderator individually and set on review status. Any subscriber on review status must have their postings approved of by the moderator who can also remove the review status at that point. In addition, the moderator must approve all postings from non-subscribers.
A cosmetic change also occurred at this time. On the request of several subscribers, the subject header feature was turned on for all subscribers. Subscribers were also made aware of how to turn the subject header off if they chose to do so.
The changes made to the list have made a big difference in the ability of members of the society to communicate more effectively. Because postings from the majority of members go straight to ARLIS-L, the ability to communicate through the list now happens much faster than it did in the past when the moderator had to send out all postings to the list at one time, usually only once a day.