At 09:17 AM 21/03/96 +0100, you wrote:
>Without wishing in the slightest way to do anything that might hamper the
>development of the fledgling ICOM-L, I would like to remind everyone that
>this list has a very specific mandate. It is intended to serve as a forum
>for the discussion of matters specifically relating to the International
>Council of Museums, most particularly as announced on the companion list,
>ICOM-ANNOUNCE.  Anything concerning the organization and its activities is
>appropriate for posting here. To be sure, ICOM deals with general
>museological issues, but the MUSEUM-L list serves admirably for the
>discussion of such topics and neither list will benefit from ICOM-L being
>seen as a duplicate effort.
>
>A more specific intent behind ICOM-L is to provide a feedback channel for
>commentary about ICOM's efforts at establishing a useful network resource.
>In an attempt to elicit such discussion I would very much appreciate
>knowing how the list members feel about the following matter:
>
>A fundamental tenet of ICOM's network services is that material provided
>via the network should be available to the largest possible segment of the
>community. As a result, much emphasis has been placed on the maintenance
>of e-mail distribution mechanisms. In practice, however, little use has
>been made of the e-mail-based document retrieval facilities. The
>subscriber base for ICOM's various e-mail distribution lists is impressive
>enough but the number of active contributions to the lists is very low.
>
>Both the contributors of material to the ICOM resource and its users have
>indicated a very clear preference for utilizing the World Wide Web. Given
>that the essence of Web material is its multimediality, the maintenance of
>an alternative e-mail-based service of Web documents is not a trivial
>technical matter.
>
>My question is simply this -- How many of you who use ICOM's e-mail
>services could as easily access the ICOM Web site?  My impression at this
>point is that people whose network access is limited to e-mail tend to
>be generally restrictive about their use of such facilities (for financial
>reasons?).  Those who are more active tend to use the service of their
>choice, but often have access to the full complement (e-mail, FTP, Gopher,
>WWW).
>
>???
>
> --
>Cary Karp <[log in to unmask]>       Department of Information Technology
>Phone: +46 8 666 4055       Swedish Museum of Natural History
>Fax:   +46 8 666 4235       Box 50007, 104 05 Stockholm, Sweden
>


I can just as easily access ICOM's WWW site - and do so first, if that will
facilitate matters. >

Sincerely,
Nancy Hushion
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