A problem arises from Ms. Thomas' suggestion below. It's called "SPAM."
Many of us find unsolicited commercial email considerably more offensive than
the "on-topic," commercial listserv postings (not directed personally) which we
are speaking of here. Why not consider exlibris to be akin to an ongoing
conference where various discussions are taking place. In the main hall there
are several tables set up with commercial flyers to take up, or simply leave on
the table. Simple enough, in my opinion, to select the group one wishes to join
for thoughtful dialogue, and bypass altogether the "commercial" handouts. From
what I've heard in response to the moderator's edict, most of us agree.
We all know about the loads of junk mail we get at home. To suggest that
booksellers ought to "go to the . . . trouble" to take the listing of all the
email addresses of exlibris participants and send out unsolicited, commercial
email (SPAM) is a terrible idea. I'd would hate to see it happen, and suspect
that Mr. Powers mentioned this alternative with "tongue in cheek."
Might I suggest to our moderator the possibility of a subset of messages, as
we do on the ABAA list, whereby the sender's email is automatically placed for
any reply. The two subsets of messages are (discuss) and (trade). In the latter
group anyone hitting the "reply" button will automatically begin composing a
response to that party directly. I would think that some penalty could be in
place for those dealers who would not use this mode of posting, say after
several mis-directed postings of catalogue/website announcements. And, HUZZAH,
we could all utilize filters in our mail systems to automatically place them in
the trashcan should we wish to do so.
Just a thought.
Sincerely,
Paul Melzer, a bookseller who has not yet posted to exlibris anything
commercial, but much of whose current scholarship is tied intrinsically to
commerce. (Alas!)
Priscilla Thomas wrote:
> What a novel idea, Mr. Powers! Imagine booksellers who actually would go to
> that kind of trouble (that has to take all of what, say about 5 minutes?)
> My guess is, which isn't really a guess, is that really successful
> booksellers already do this rather than jumping on Exlibris every time they
> have a new catalog or new addition to their website. And here's another
> novel suggestion....why not, and I know this is really going out on a
> limb...., but why doesn't some eager bookseller set up an electronic list
> where their catalogs and websites can be advertised exclusively and book
> collectors and librarians can subscribe. You can bet there wouldn't be any
> position annoucements there. Exlibris, then, could be devoted to
> *discussion*.
--
Paul Melzer
P.O. Box 1143
12 E. Vine Street
Redlands, California 92373
USA
Member
*Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America
*International League of Antiquarian Booksellers
*Manuscript Society of America
(909) 792-7299
mailto:pm@pmbooks.com