Email Lists
What They Are? How to Subscribe? And Why Didn't I Get That Posting?
This month's article will focus on Email List--what they are, how to subscribe to them, and how to change
delivery options. The article also addresses possible reasons why a subscriber may not receive a posting and
why a posting may not get distributed to the list. The focus will be on the Email Lists hosted by the
University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) for the Regional Medical Library (RML).
However, a great deal of this information applies to any Email List.
An Email List is a communication tool that enables the subscribers to post questions, respond to questions, or
provide information to a group of people at the same time. When an email is addressed to the Email List,
it is automatically broadcast to everyone on the list. LISTSERV is a commercial Email List product
sold by L-Soft International. The UMMS uses an Email List product from Lyris.
Since an email addressed to an Email List goes to a number of people, users should be careful when responding to a
posting. When you press the Reply or Reply All button, make sure the response is going to the intended
recipient. Do you want to reply to the entire list or just the person who posted the message?
You may need to copy and paste an individual's email address if just want to reply to an individual and not to the list.
The UMMS hosts a number of Email Lists for medical librarians in the region:
NAHSL-L - North Atlantic Health Science Librarians
CAHSL-L - Connecticut Association of Health Science Librarians
HSLIC-L - Health Science Libraries and Information Consortium of Maine
HSLNHVT-L - Health Sciences Libraries of New Hampshire and Vermont
ARIHSL-L - Association of Rhode Island Health Sciences Libraries
MAHSLIN-L - Massachusetts Health Sciences Library Network
EFTS-L - Electronic Funds Transfer System
The RML primarily uses NAHSL-L to communicate to librarians in the region. If you have not done so
already, please join NAHSL-L to stay abreast of activities at the RML, NLM, and at libraries throughout the region.
Web access to the UMMS library related Email Lists is available from http://list.umassmed.edu.
It is possible to subscribe
to lists, change subscription options, unsubscribe from lists, and view posted messages from this location.
Some of the lists, like the ones mentioned above, are open to anybody. A number of lists are private--requiring
approval to join and a password to view messages.
How to Join
The easiest way to join is through the UMMS Lyris Web interface.
Access the Web page http://list.umassmed.edu.
Select Library Science.
Select the list you want to join.
Complete the "Enter your email address" area.
Press the Save Button.
Ideally, you would also enter your name, but that is an option. Other subscription options include:
| Password: |
A password is not really necessary except for List Administrators or if you are subscribing
to a private list. |
| Status: |
Most subscribers accept the default which is: "Mail: receive messages as they are contributed".
Another popular option is "Digest: one daily message with all contributions for that day". |
| See your Messages: |
This option specifies whether you want to receive copies of your own postings when they
are distributed to the subscribers of the list. The default is set to Yes, so it is possible to confirm
that your postings were distributed. |
| Acknowledgement: |
Receive a confirmation message after each of your contributions. The default is No.
This is not required since you should receive an error message if the Email List rejects your message. |
Another way to join one of the lists is by sending an email with specific commands to the email server. Every list has two email addresses--one
is used to send commands to the server and the other is used to send messages/postings to the list.
Below are the two email addresses for the NAHSL list and instructions on how to subscribe to NAHSL-L via email:
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Use this address to send a posting to the NAHSL-L Email List: |
NAHSL-L@list.umassmed.edu.
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| Use this address to send a command to the UMMS email server: |
lyris@list.umassmed.edu.
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To subscribe to NAHSL-L via Email: |
Address an email to the email server using the address:
lyris@list.umassmed.edu.
Enter the subscribe command in the subject line or in the body of the message: subscribe NAHSL-L [Your Name].
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Why Didn't I Get the Posting [Jane Doe] Sent?
Sometimes a posted message may not get to the list, or an individual subscriber may not receive a message.
As with person-to-person email, there are a number of reasons why this may happen. There are many steps
in the process between somebody sending a posting and an individual subscriber receiving an email.
Therefore, a little detective work is sometimes required to figure out why an email message was not received. Please feel
free to contact Penny Glassman, the List Administrator, for assistance
in diagnosing Email List problems.
The diagram below illustrates the steps involved in sending a posting to an Email List.
(Note: Messages to user2 and user 3 at Library 4 go through a second email server--a group server.)
Step1
A subscriber at Library 1 sends a posting to the list via email.
The email gets sent to the subscriber's email server.
The subscriber's email server forwards the message to the UMMS email server.
The subscriber's email server could reject the message if there is a hardware problem and the server is down, or if there
is a problem with the format of the email. (e.g. message too large, server does not accept emails in HTML format, etc.)
The person sending the email should receive an error message.
Step 2
The UMMS email server will either accept or reject the Email List posting. If it is rejected, an error
message is sent to the Library 1 email server, which should forward the information to the person
who sent the posting.
Possible reasons the posting may be rejected:
Identified as junk or spam email
Message size too large
Format problems. (For example, the message may include graphics and/or an attachment and be too large.)
Step 3
The UMMS Email List software processes the message and prepares for distribution to the subscribers.
Step 4
The UMMS Email List attempts to send the posting to the mail server for each subscriber. Sometimes the posting cannot be
delivered to a subscriber. For example if:
The Domain Name is no longer valid. This can occur if the organization changed names or installed new email server hardware.
The Subscriber's email is no longer valid. This can occur if the subscriber left the organization or moved to a different department.
The Subscriber's email box is full. Some email systems limit the number of messages or amount of storage a person can use for email.
This is especially a problem with services such as hotmail.
Format problems. Email servers sometimes reject messages with attachments and some email servers do not accept HTML formatted emails.
Step 5
If a posting cannot be delivered to an individual, a message is sent from the subscriber's email server to the Email List.
If after three attempts a posting is not delivered to the subscriber, an error message is sent to the List Administrator.
If five postings within five days cannot be delivered to a subscriber, the subscriber is put on Hold for that Email List. The software will not attempt to deliver any more messages to the subscriber.
As mentioned above, if you are having problems sending or receiving messages posted to one of the Library Related
Email Lists hosted by UMMS, feel free to contact the Email List Administrator, Penny Glassman.
Through the List Administration software, it is possible to:
See if a posting was received and distributed through the Email List.
Identify which subscribers received and which did not receive a posting.
If a subscriber did not receive a posting, view the error message describing the problem.
Identify if a subscriber has been put on hold due to five error messages within five days.
Change a subscriber from "On Hold" to "Normal".
Additional Information
| Domain Name |
A domain name is a way to identify computers on the Internet. It consists of two or more sections
separated by periods called "dots". Domain names include the name of the organization or company and a
designation of the type of organization. For example, "edu" is the designation for colleges and
universities, "com" is the designation for commercial entities, and "gov" is for U.S. government organizations.
The domain name portion of a person's email address may change if the organization merges with another organization, or
if the company providing email access to an individual is bought. For example, in New England when AT&T Broadband purchased
MediaOne, the domain name in individual email addresses changed from "mediaone.com" to "att.net".
Refer to Domain Name in
Webopedia.com for additional information.
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| Email |
Short for Electronic Mail, the transmission of messages over communications networks.
Refer to E-Mail in
Webopedia.com for additional information.
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| Email List |
A list of e-mail addresses identified by a single name, such as NAHSL-L@list.umassmed.edu.
When an e-mail message is sent to the mailing list name, it is automatically forwarded to all the addresses in the list.
Refer to Mailing List in Webopedia.com for
additional information.
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| Posting |
An email sent to an Email List for distribution to all the people subscribed to the list.
Postings can also be viewed through the UMMS Web interface at http://list.umassmed.edu.
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| Why Emails Bounce |
Refer to Why E-Mails Bounce in Webopedia.com for
additional information.
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Penny Glassman, Technology
Coordinator
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