Dartmouth maintains a merged list of the LISTSERV and manually maintained lists on Bitnet and the Interest Group lists on the Internet. It is a single file with one line for each mailing list. The list has been updated monthly for the last year and has a stable format. Each line consists of seven fields, delimited by tabs. The list contains information about approximately 2,500 lists. The fields are: Field Size Category (Computing, Science, Humanities, etc) 1 List group 3-11 "Mail to" E-mail address for submitting mail 8-80 to the list for distribution "Command to" E-mail address for subscribing, signing off and 8-80 other administratrivia One line description of the list subject 8-60 Name and E-mail address for the owner of the list 0-80 Long description of the list 0-450 This list-of-lists differs from some similiar lists and the list returned by sending the LIST GLOBAL command to a backbone LISTSERV in that: a) Duplicate entries are deleted b) Lists obviously intended only for local use are omitted c) Information about the lists is field delimited, allowing simple parsing d) Both Internet and Bitnet lists are included e) A text description of the purpose of the list is provided The flat data file containing the list-of-lists information can be obtained by mail by sending the command SEND LISTTEXT PACKAGE to LISTSERV@DARTCMS1. This will return five files which can be concatenated to form the full list. An editor can then be used to crudely search this text file. The file LISTSERV LISTS contains the full list-of-list known on Bitnet and the Internet with the long descriptions. When a list exists on both Bitnet and the Internet, it presents the Bitnet address. The file INTERNET LISTS contains the same lists as the LISTSERV LISTS file, but the Internet address is presented for dual network lists. A short form of the text form of the list can be obtained with the command SEND LISTSHRT PACKAGE to LISTSERV@DARTCMS1. This will return a five lists (by category) containing only three fields: Mail to Address, Subscription to Address, and a one line description of the list. A Macintosh Hypercard application is available to format, display and search the list-of-lists. To get the Binhexed Hypercard application as well as the data files it uses, use the command SEND MACSIG PACKAGE to LISTSERV@DARTCMS1. A VM/CMS Xedit/Rexx application is available to format, display and search the list-of-lists. To get the VM/CMS application as well as the data files it uses, use the command SEND CMSSIG PACKAGE to LISTSERV@DARTCMS1. A VAX/VMS application written in Pascal is available to format, display and search the list-of-lists. It requires the VMS Pascal compiler. To get the VMS application source code as well as the data files it uses, use the command SEND VAXSIG PACKAGE to LISTSERV@DARTCMS1. A generic Unix application written in C is available to format, display and search the list-of-lists. It requires a C compiler and the curses library. To get the Unix application source code as well as the data files it uses, use the command SEND UnixSIG PACKAGE to LISTSERV@DARTCMS1. These are BIG files; the text data file alone is around a half mbyte. If you are on the Internet, you may want to recover the files via FTP rather than mail. The files are available by anonymous FTP to DARTCMS1.DARTMOUTH.EDU <129.170.16.19> in directory SIGLISTS. To obtain the text file by anonymous FTP, enter the following commands: FTP DARTCMS1.DARTMOUTH.EDU ANONYMOUS CD SIGLISTS GET READ.ME GET LISTSERV.LISTS QUIT The list-of-lists is updated monthly. You can use the LISTSERV AFD command to automatically get fresh copies by mail whenever the files are updated, or use the LISTSERV FUI command to get an automatic notification of the update by mail so you can get a new copy by FTP. To use either command you will probably want to assign yourself a password on the DARTCMS1 listserv. Send the following commands to LISTSERV@DARTCMS1: PW ADD AFD ADD PACKAGE SIGLISTS or PW ADD FUI ADD PACKAGE SIGLISTS The Dartmouth list-of-lists is provided to help you identify lists of interest on specific topics. If you have a question or an announcement you would like to distribute, PLEASE send it ONLY to the one or two lists whose subscribers would be most interested. At no time should mail be sent to many lists or "all lists". Such "junk mail" causes many duplications and network congestion and is a violation of the spirit of most network usage agreements. If you are in doubt about this policy please check it out with your system administrators before sending mail to a list. * * * * * * * * * * * * David Avery * BITNET: DAVID@DARTCMS1 * System Manager for VM/CMS * INTERNET: David.Avery@DARTMOUTH.EDU * Dartmouth College * SMAIL: Kiewit Computation Center * vox clamantis in deserto * Hanover, New Hampshire 03755 * * * * * * * * * * * * *