At great risk of alienating friends, neighbors, and subscribers of both
CIDOC-L and MUSEUM-L, I offer the following comments about CIDOC-L.
 
For many years, I have been a staunch proponent of _not_ establishing
new discussion lists _until_ it is clearly demonstrated that an existing
list is no longer doing the job (as more and more people discovered the
networks and discussion lists, there was a growing tendency for novitiates
to propose new lists, often at the drop of a hat; this phenomonon was what
generally prompted me to raise concern and an appeal for forbearance).
 
Now, I wonder how subscribers will distinguish the lists CIDOC-L and
MUSSEUM-L. There are a couple of guidelines, proposed by the CIDOC-L list
owner --it will focus on CIDOC members' business (in the narrow sense of
membership, not the broad sense of "museums/collections"), and it will
focus on documentation issues _and their relationship to the rest of
museum world_. As Cary Karp stated, CIDOC-L is:
 
"intended to serve as a medium of communication for CIDOC's specific
organizational needs, but far more importantly, it is intended to serve as
a platform for the discussion of all matters of joint significance to the
museum field and the field of documentation, in the broadest sense of the
terms."
 
I take _no_ issue with the first objective of CIDOC-L. It's the second one
that leaves me concerned. I imagine that most museum professionals have
enough interest in documentation that they will not only "tolerate" discussion
of such on MUSEUM-L but would welcome it, especially as it relates to the
museum field in general. Why not discuss it there?
 
Perhaps some description of what forms of documentation beyond museum
documentation are in the domain of interests of CIDOC will
help subscribers to know when to send a note to CIDOC-L
and when to send it to MUSEUM-L?
 
For example, Lee Ann says (which I severely edited):
 
> From: Lee Kalwat <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Introductory nudge
> To: "CIDOC Distribution List" <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Mon, 12 Sep 1994 11:11:58 -0400 (EDT)
>
> OK, I'll take the bait.
> My primary
> reason for joining this list
> is to talk with other database managers about the ways in
> which they are meeting the demands of NAGPRA.
>
> we're running with an Ingres database on Sunos,
> one of the problems
> we're running into is a need for a larger data record.
> I'd be interested in hearing other stories from the
> trenches regarding efforts to comply with NAGPRA.
>
> Lee Ann Kalwat
> Sys. Admin.
 
Now, I my mind, this note could have been posted equally well to MUSEUM-L.
In addition, given the recent notice that another new list, for NAGPRA
people, is being set up, it seems even more confusing to raise the issue
of NAGPRA for discussion on CIDOC-L (rather than waiting a week or two
until the NAGPRA list is announced [as promised]).
 
I am not arguing territorial issues here. I just find it confusing to have
several lists which do not distinguish their mission adequately to permit
subscribers to easily (most of the time) know to which list to post a
particular message. Basically, it means that most people will have to
subscribe to both lists, and that there will be lots of cross-talk
between them.
 
Can anyone help clarify my confusion with some criteria for selecting
to which list to post?
Peter Rauch