MLA-L at Twenty

MLA-L, the electronic-mail distribution list for music librarians, is now twenty years old. Before the establishment of the list in 1989, professional communication among music librarians was paper based and slow. The growth of computer networks in the early 1980s led to the development of applications to promote group communication, including LISTSERV, an e-mail distribution application released in 1986. With the help of Mary Papakhian, a member of the information technology staff at Indiana University, Ralph Papakhian established MLA-L as the first distribution list on the university\u27s LISTSERV server. Growth of the list was rapid: by the end of 1995, there were over 1,000 subscribers, and since then the number has slowly increased to over 1,100. The topics of discussion on MLA-L cover all aspects of the profession, and the archives of messages posted to the list provide a rich resource for the study of the history of music librarianship

Wide Area Networks and Regional Science Recent Developments and Future Prospects

Series: IIR-Discussion Paper

Letter to Kathy Heberer regarding the Southeastern Law Librarian, October 24, 1990

A letter from Alfred Lewis to Kathy Heberer regarding a potential column for the Southeastern Law Librarian. Copies of Lewis\u27 work are enclosed

ARNOVA-L and the Cinderella Syndrome

In this brief newsletter column, the author recounts the story of how a LISTSERV-based discussion list founded in 1991 helped to transform an international multi-disciplinary research society from a Cinderella organization that convened once a year for a three-day conference and then effectively disappeared again until the next annual conference. Communications fostered through the discussion list helped to transform the organization into a fully-functioning, year-round operation as subscriptions burgeoned from an original 32 subscribers to more than 1,500

Electronic Battlefields, Visions of Progress and Computer Networks in State Socialist Poland

This essay discusses how imageries of scientific, economic, and social progress influenced the development of computer‑based telecommunication networks in state socialist Poland. The author argues that attempts at establishing communication networks between computers were interdependent with imageries of electronic communication as a vector of economic and scientific progress. While discussing the development of particular telecommunication systems such as academic computer networks and privately owned personal computer modems, the author shows how such imagery, juxtaposed with a vision of the so called “electronic battlefield,” influenced public understanding of computer networks. Based on archival documents, legislative acts and computer periodicals, this article shows how computer professionals, policy makers, and the scientific community influenced the social construction of computer networks as vectors of modernity and social and scientific development.Cet article étudie la façon dont les représentations du progrès scientifique, économique et social ont influencé le développement des réseaux informatiques de télécommunication en Pologne socialiste. L’auteur avance que les tentatives d’établir des réseaux de communication entre ordinateurs étaient interdépendantes de l’image de la communication électronique en tant que vecteur de progrès scientifique et économique. Tout en analysant le développement de systèmes particuliers de télécommunication tels les réseaux informatiques académiques et les ordinateurs privés, l’auteur démontre comment une telle représentation, juxtaposée à une vision de ce qu’on appelle le « champ de bataille électronique », influença la compréhension publique des réseaux informatiques. Fondé sur des documents d’archives, des actes législatifs et des périodiques informatiques, cet article montre comment les informaticiens, les décideurs politiques et la communauté scientifique influencèrent la construction sociale des réseaux informatiques en tant que vecteurs de modernité et de développement social et scientifique