Museum-L-ers,
Please excuse me in advance if this seems too long, but I want to be clear
and thorough in my response to the discussion about increased LIST-SERV
activity.  Someone (who's message I hastily delted) said that she is able to
read the length and server of a piece of email before opening it and others
have said that they can save their mail indefinitely. Neither is true for me.
When I have a flashsession to retrieve mail it does not say who is sending it
until it is in my "mailbox".  Instead, it only says the name of the piece and
the time that I am having the flashsession (as if I don't know what time it
is or as if the exact minute and second is important to me).  Then, once the
mail is "in" it still only says something like this:
1/22/96 MUSEUM-L@UNMVMAx No Subject
which does not describe the length, nor the exact sender, and is often not
clear enough about the subject.  Once retrieved into my mailbox,  I only have
a limited time and/or number of pieces of email that can be saved before I no
longer can retrieve the contents of the mail (true for incoming and outgoing
mail by the way).

The comprehensive array of writing on and from museum-l is both informational
and entertaining to me and I would vote NOT to splinter off into subgroups.
 However, I would like email to be more efficient in that I would like to
have the SENDERS be as EXPLICIT in their headings as possible so that I can
see by way of the titles if I want to read or delete without having to open
the mail.  Then, I would like to be able to see who sent the piece WHILE a
flashsession is retrieving my mail (to see if I want to open the incoming
mail at that time or wait until later) .  Then, I would like to be able to
save an infinite number of pieces without fear of losing them into the ether
before I read them (or, in the case of outgoing, until I decide whether or
not to save them on my hard drive or in print).  Then, I would like each
writer/sender to be sure to put their name and, if pertinent, name of
business or museum on the writing (sometimes there are even job postings that
say the name of the museum but not the location).

There may be a system to break up the nmuseum-l mail into smaller groups or
subheadings or something (as John Chadwick seems to be implying in his
message dated Jan 22, but which I  have yet to study in total) but I wonder
if the system then becomes too complicated to maneuver (again, I am not sure
of this but it seems we might begin to see multiple "HELP" messages regarding
directions for museum-l with every new subscriber).

In short, in my opinion, the problem with museum-l  mail being too cumbersome
is partially because of the inefficiency of the individual writing of headers
and in part due to the system itself.

Just my opinion ...for those of you who haven't deleted this already.  Anyone
have the same concerns?

Mindy Lehrman Cameron
Architect/Exhibition Designer
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