Commercial digest update (SERIALST admin) Birdie MacLennan 05 Sep 2008 22:43 UTC
Dear Colleagues, Since June 2008, the SERIALST moderators have been experimenting with compiling and distributing a Commercial Digest once a week, generally on Friday afternoons, with messages containing content from commercial bodies (i.e., publishers, aggregators, vendors, etc.) As Bob Persing, SERIALST Associate Moderator, noted in a June 24 message, "SERIALST receives many advertising messages from commercial bodies [...] which the moderators don't pass on to the list. We do post messages from these same people or companies that are primarily informational, or that are participating in list discussions. We get a third type of message, though: a mix of information and promotion ..." We began compiling the Commercial digest to look at ways to handle these hybrid messages with both informational and promotional content. To date we have received mixed reactions to the Digests -- from reserved to favorable, to advice about not wanting to see such messages. The yays are currently outnumbering the nays, so we are continuing with the experiment. However this week, we did not receive messages that fall into the scope of the digest! We have also received messages from folks in the commercial sector asking for clarification about guidelines. To this end, we've revised the scope and purpose statement with a few sentences about guidelines, notably for Commercial Digest content. Essentially, here is what we've been doing for Commercial Digest content: The moderators review submitted messages for informational content that may interest our subscribers. Messages that are purely for advertising or product/service solicitation, with little or no informational content beyond the solicitation, will not be included in the Commercial Digest. For additional information, please see: http://www.uvm.edu/~bmaclenn/serialst.html#scope If you have thoughts or feedback about the Commercial Digests, please let us hear from you. Contact information for the SERIALST moderators is at: http://www.uvm.edu/~bmaclenn/serialst.html#contacts Best wishes, -- Birdie MacLennan SERIALST Listowner/Moderator -- Birdie MacLennan Bailey/Howe Library E-mail: bmaclenn@uvm.edu University of Vermont AIM/IM: birdieatbailey 538 Main Street Phone: 802-656-2016 Burlington, VT 05405, USA Fax: 802-656-4038 Library Associate Professor ; Coordinator, Serials & Cataloging Interim Head, Collection Management Services