Scholarly E-Mail Lists, Once Vibrant, Fight for Relevance

Once they were hosts to lively discussions about academic style and substance, but the time of scholarly e-mail lists has passed, meaningful posts slowing to a trickle as professors migrate to blogs, wikis, Twitter, and social networks like Facebook.

“While I am still on a few listservs, it is mainly because they give me no other option for receiving information,” wrote Kay Cunningham, an electronic-resources librarian at the University of Memphis. “I find them increasingly annoying —even those with digest options, and for the most part I delete them unread.”