E-mail Lists

The Microbiology Network supports several mail lists on topics of interest to the microbiology and biotechnology community. These lists include:
• PMFList - Discussion of microbiology in regulated industries
• Archives of the PMFList are available for review.

Unless noted, all mail lists are open to anyone with an interest in the topic.

To subscribe to most of the lists below, you must send an Email to the administrative address. The text of the Email should read:

subscribe MAILIST_NAME FIRSTNAME LASTNAME

Please note that the mail list name is provided in bold below, and it is usually required that you provide your full name (first and last) to the list.

Some of the lists will then respond with a confirmatory message to make sure that your Email address is correct. Once you reply to this message you will be subscribed. If you have problems, send the word HELP to the administrative address - that will give you additional information.

Several mail lists are supported by The Microbiology Network. Please let us know of any mail list relevant to microbiology or biotechnology that is not included on this list. Also contact us if you would like to see a new mail list established on a topic of interest. We can be reached at sysop@microbiol.org.

About Mail Lists
For those unfamiliar with mail lists, they provide forums for discussion of specific topics without the distractions common to the more easily accessible newsgroups. Frequently, the mail list is moderated by someone who is motivated to keep the "junk" out of the list, and so the discussion can be of a very high quality.

How they work
Mail lists are processed by servers. A subscriber mails his message to the server, which in turn sends the message out to everyone on the list. Replies to the message are, in their turn, sent to all on the list. In this way the mail list supports a discussion of a topic via Email. Each server program has its own set of commands, but fortunately there is general agreement on the basic functions. For example, if you wish to subscribe to a mail list you would post an Email to the Administrative Address, and in the body of the text include the statement SUBSCRIBE "LIST NAME" on a line by itself. Of course, you would replace "LIST NAME" with the name of the list.

There are two types of lists commonly used, defined by their purpose. In a one-way list, the list is basically a subscription service to disseminate information from a source to a large number of people. This is commonly used for distribution of newsletters and such. The second type of list is a discussion list where every subscriber may contribute to the discussion, sending a message to a central listserver for distribution to all. Each subscriber also gets each message distributed. The PMF-ANNOUNCE is an example of a one-way list, while the PMFList is an example of an Email Discussion List.