I have a solution for you: don't get the digest format.  Switch out of Digest mode, get messages one at a time, divert them into a Museum-L folder (using "message options" in Outlook & Outlook Express), and exercise the delete key for messages with subject lines that don't interest you.    It's not really that complicated and I find it takes less time than wading through the digest version.  

Others have made the point that this is a free service, with moderators spending hours of their time, uncompensated, to provide a service.  If you want to help them, then by all means, offer your services.  Otherwise, I suggest you try to be as grateful for their services as the rest of us are.   As someone else pointed out, if you'd like a listserve instead of a discussion list, then you'll have to start one.   Museum-L is what it is.  It is not 'unprofessional': it is collegial and casual. Which is not to say that a few posters are, indeed, lacking in netiquette, grammar, and professionalism, but we are free to delete their postings, unread, or even block particular people using our mail readers.   

Jill R. Chancey, Curator
Lauren Rogers Museum of Art
Laurel, MS
[log in to unmask]
(phone) 601-649-6374
(fax) 601-649-6379

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Candice Brashears 
  To: [log in to unmask] 
  Sent: Sunday, August 17, 2003 11:34 AM
  Subject: List Msg Format


  I'd like to offer a suggestion to posting and distribution style of list.  I, and likely others, find scrolling through multiple copies of previously stated general list information as well as multiple copies of queries & answers a time-consuming affair that quite often means a) locating a specific topic cumbersome and often missed; b) too large to save, much less read, without changing to Notepad; c) printing is expensive with numerous pages of duplicate material; d) time task of deleting all the extraneous material to print or save to file in economical manner.

  I find the current Digest format, quite frankly, unprofessional.  I won't even approach the subject of unprofessional manner in which some postings find their way to the list, which would better left to another venue.   I digress.  I belong to several managed listserves and none are submitted in this particular format.  For example:  a simple notification of events, paper call, symposiums etc is at H-Net (H-Women for instance).  A useful site for inquires, responses etc regarding historic preservation is on Forum-L through the National Trust for Historic Preservation.  These are not fancy or complicated sites to read for the topic I might wish to read, save or print. 

  There have been several queries, similar to ones I have, and find it most interesting to learn how others have solved a problem, particularly ones from the non-profit - small museum - little available money sector;  from where to buy archival products - to mounting an exhibit - to creative fund raising ideas.

  How does the rest of list feel?  

  Candice Brashears
  Wallingford Historic Preservation Trust-CT

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