Listservs
OLS-North manages several listservs (electronic discussion groups) of interest to library staff and trustees throughout the north.
They are:
listlib@olsn.ca for CEO’s of all northern libraries
northshorenetworking@olsn.ca for North Shore networking
parrysoundnetworking@olsn.ca for Parry Sound networking
thunderbaynetworking@olsn.ca for Thunder Bay networking
francophonenetworking@olsn.ca for Francophone networking
firstnationsnetworking@olsn.ca for First Nations networking
kirklandlakenetworking@olsn.ca for Kirkland Lake networking
manitoulinnetworking@olsn.ca for Manitoulin networking
firstnations@library.on.ca for all First Nation libraries in Ontario
nearnorthnetworking@olsn.ca for Near North networking
This is your opportunity to share information with your northern colleagues, ask questions or discuss issues which affect you and your library. The list is unmoderated, although OLS-North staff are members of the listserv. Topics vary. Some examples are: Ministry announcements, OLS-North news, job announcements, grant news, and discussion about children’s services, collection development, marketing, policy and planning.
If you are a CEO or trustee of a public library in Northern Ontario and wish to participate in the discussion group, but have not been receiving messages, or, if you do not wish to have your e-mail on this listserv, please contact Anne Langevin at OLS-North: alangevin@olsn.ca Telephone (705) 675-6467, ext. 214 or 1-800-461-6348, ext. 214.
Language
It is the policy of OLS-North to post all messages to the listserv in English and French. However, subscribers may post in the language of their choice.
How to send mail
Once you are subscribed to the list, all you need to do is ask your question or participate in any discussions and wait for someone to answer.
Please do NOT send requests to subscribe, unsubscribe etc. to the address for posting messages.
Posting a new message
To post a new message to the list, send mail to the list address using the same procedure as when you send mail to other people. Your mail program does not need to know that you are sending to a list.
Send your email to the addresses listed above.
OLS-North reserves the right to remove individuals from the list who circulate potentially damaging communications such as hate literature, pornography, obscenities, or any messages of a defamatory, threatening or harassing nature.
Subjects
When posting a message on the List, it is always a good idea to explain what your email is about by creating a SUBJECT line which is appropriate to your message.
For example, if you wanted to send mail that asks for help with a certain policy you should make your subject line look like this:
Subject: POLICY: children on the internet?
Replying to a message
Once you have been subscribed and seen some of the postings on the Libraries North Listserv, you may want to respond to a posting you have read. The best way to respond is by using the "reply" function of your mail program. This way the message subject is preserved and the other people on the list can see that your message is a reply to the original question. You can, of course, post your reply as a new message, but you will then have to retype the subject, and if you enter something slightly different people may not realize it is a reply to a previous post. There is no universally correct place to send your reply. Most of the time, your reply will be useful to at least one other person on the list. On other occasions you may want to reply only to the person who posted the original question.
In general, if your reply is short there is little harm in sending it to everyone: it does not take much time to discard a message which is not interesting. On the other hand, if your reply is a 2000-line document you wrote on the subject it might not be a good idea to send it to the list unless you are sure everyone is interested. Some people will be downloading messages through a low-speed modem. The best thing to do in that case is to send a short message to the list saying you are willing to share your document, and that people who are interested can contact you for a copy.
If you choose to post a 'thank you' message to the list, consider including the answer to your question, for the benefit of other list members.
Unsubscribing
If you are receiving messages and do not wish to have your e-mail on this listserv, please contact Anne Langevin at OLS-North: alangevin@olsn.ca Telephone (705) 675-6467, ext. 214 or 1-800-461-6348, ext. 214. Please do NOT send requests to subscribe, unsubscribe etc. to the address for posting messages.