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