BUSLIB-L is an electronic forum that addresses all issues relating to: the collection, storage, and dissemination of Business Information within a library setting, regardless of format.

Topics of discussion often include:

-collection development

-handling and weeding of materials

-databases (paper, electronic, microform)

-user services

-bibliographic instruction

-public relations

-reference materials

-selecting a vendor

-vendor relations

-managing a library

BUSLIB-L will accept announcements of upcoming conferences, and calls to authors, if they are pertinent to business librarianship.

BUSLIB-L will also accept submissions of job vacancy notices if they are relevant to audience of this list and include salary information, "Salary commensurate with qualifications and experience" is not acceptable.  You must at least include a salary range.

BUSLIB-L can also serve as a forum for librarians to locate reference materials that are not readily available in your nearby region. However you should not turn to BUSLIB-L as a first place to locate materials or to bypass document delivery services available in your local area,. BUSLIB-L should be a last/emergancy resort.

To minimize duplication of efforts, please state what sources you have already exhausted that did not answer the reference question at hand. Please do not say things such as "I've checked all of the standard reference sources," since what is standard for the UNDERFUNDED PODUNK LIBRARY is not the same as the "standard sources" at SILVER LINING MEMORIAL LIBRARY.

Requests for locating materials can be posted to BUSLIB-L, only if each requester specifies what tools they have used to locate the materials in question. Individual BUSLIB-L readers might be able to verify a fractured citation, or identify reasons why a journal is difficult to locate. But there is no assurance that any request will generate a satisfactory response.

Each person or organization requesting assistance is responsible for adhering to their local Copyright Laws and Regulations. Although BUSLIB-L is free, use of this service does not waive any legal obligation for paying royalty fees on copyrighted materials.

BUSLIB-L's readers are more likely to respond to calls for assistance if each query states what tools have already been consulted to no avail, before asking BUSLIB-L subscribers for assistance.

Many of our subscribers choose to receive BUSLIB-L as a once-a-day digest. This will substantially slow down the number of people who read your message shortly after you hit the send button.

BUSLIB-L is read by librarians who work with business information sources in all types of libraries (i.e., public, academic, corporate, government, nonprofit and consortiums) across the globe.

BUSLIB-L is useful to simultaneously reach thousands of business librarians. If you want to respond to one person who said something on the list, then you should respond with a private message to that person's e-mail address. 

When you submit a question, please summarize the results for all subscribers to see. If you want to know the results of a recently posted question, send a private message to the person who posted that particular call for help.

BUSLIB-L is a list that receives wide distribution (over 2,000 subscribers as of 07/2009). Messages are distributed to all subscribers automatically within moments of being received by the Listserv(R) software. Once you hit the send button, it is physically impossible for anyone to cancel a posting!

Any opinions expressed on BUSLIB-L belong to the respective message senders. The views expressed in any post are not necessarily those of the List Administrator, the administrator's employer, nor any organization that provides computing or software support to BUSLIB-L.

All job postings must include a SUBJECT HEADING describing the job, and the location of the job (such as JOB: Economics Librarian, Washington DC, USA).

You do not have to subscribe to BUSLIB-L in order to submit a job posting to BUSLIB-L. Submit the post and it will go to the list administrator for distribution.

BUSLIB-L will accept job vacancy postings only if the position specifies either a minimum starting salary, or a specifics salary range.

Vague statements about competitive salaries or salaries based on an individual's qualifications without specifying a minimum dollar amount ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE!

If you submit such a notice, the administrator will not post it to the list.


Job postings sent to BUSLIB-L can NOT include any of the following items:

-file attachments of any type

-word processing or spreadsheet files

-HTML or SGML files

-graphic or video files

-audio or multimedia files

-any encoded documents

Just create your job posting notice as an ordinary, everyday ASCII email, addressed as follows:

mailto:BUSLIB-L@LISTS.NAU.EDU

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A FEW ITEMS TO CONSIDER REGARDING BUSLIB-L's AUDIENCE:

Traffic on BUSLIB-L is very cyclical, tending to be in synchronization with the activity levels of North American businesses & colleges, since these groups comprise more than 85% of BUSLIB-L's subscribers.

Usually there are only a handful of messages on Saturdays or Sundays. From mid-January to May, and from September to mid-December, message volume is typically 20-40 posts per North American work day. If your e-mail software cannot handle that amount of email, then you ought to seek help from your Internet service provider.

In order to facilitate getting timely feedback from your posts,
you should close off each message with:

- your FULL NAME
- your E-MAIL address
and any other contact information that is pertinent.

Postings may be rejected if you fail to spell out
your e-mail address IN THE BODY of your postings.

If your posting is specific to a certain area of geography or type of library, then please state that requirement in your post.

If you want something faxed to you, it is suggested that you ask people to first contact you privately by email or phone to obtain your fax number. That way, only one person has to pay for a fax, and you reduce any duplication of effort by your colleagues from around the world.

On a typical business day, participants submit 20-40 postings for distribution to all BUSLIB-L subscribers.

The "default" setting for a subscription, is for each person to receive a separate email document, for all of that day's postings. Postings are distributed the instant that they are received by BUSLIB-L's host at Northern Arizona University.

Some subscribers prefer to receive their BUSLIB-L postings just once a day, in what the software calls a "DIGEST". These once-a-day distributions can be rather large in size (30-55 kilobytes each), and are issued just after the stroke of midnight, on the Northern Arizona University campus. On the weekends or on North American holidays, the digests are very small.

To switch to the  once-per-day DIGEST version of BUSLIB-L:

mailto:LISTSERV@LISTS.NAU.EDU
text: SET BUSLIB-L DIGEST

To switch to the individual MAIL version of BUSLIB-L:

mailto:LISTSERV@LISTS.NAU.EDU
text: SET BUSLIB-L MAIL

BUSLIB-L subscribers reside in all corners of the globe, but the Listserv brand software can only process posts written with the Roman alphabet.

BUSLIB-L does NOT handle:

-file attachments of any type (such as WINMAIL.DAT or VCF cards)

-word processing or spreadsheet files

-HTML or SGML coding or files

-graphic or video files

-audio or multimedia files

-any encoded documents

Just create your postings as ordinary, everyday ASCII text,  rather than attaching it as a file.

BUSLIB-L is a closed list: you must be a confirmed subscriber in order to successfully post to all other subscribers. The List Administrator can manually approve any posting coming from a non-subscriber.

BUSLIB-L's List Administrator  has the right to reject any posting that is not within the scope of this list's focus or  to distribute a posting when warranted.

BUSLIB-L's List Administrator has the discretionary authority to reject any subscriber who does not comply with these guidelines.

Two people at the University of Nevada at Reno initiated BUSLIB-L in September 1990. At some point in 1991, Boise State University in Idaho became the new host for the list, where it resideduntil July of 2007.

Daniel Lester hosted the list as BUSLIB-L's owner since it moved to BSU in 1991. Dan Lester is employed as a network specialist & librarian on the BSU campus. Dan also owns about 10 other discussion groups that run through the courtesy of BSU's computer systems.

From May 1996 to May 2000, BUSLIB-L was edited by Gary Klein at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, while Dan Lester still owned the list. During that time, Gary created a Frequently Asked Questions web page, and also helped to finetune the web based interface for BUSLIB-L's archives.

In May 2000, Dan Lester became editor once again, after some policy changes at Boise State University. Gary Klein has graciously offered to continue hosting the FAQ web pages for BUSLIB-L even though the FAQ now resides on Willamette University's computers.

Then in July 2007, the list changed hands, and is now run by me, Tina Adams, at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona, USA. I personally want to thank my predecessors for their dedication to this valuable listserv.

No one has received any remuneration for lending their time and energy to the maintenance of BUSLIB-L. It is offered as a free service.

You may view messages posted to BUSLIB-L in the following ways: - once-a-day DIGESTS, - individual postings -archives that are searchable from any web browser.

You can switch between the first two formats at anytime, by issuing commands directly to the LISTSERV software at Northern Arizona University or using the web interface at

http://lists.nau.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=BUSLIB-L

Archived copies of BUSLIB-L are by week back to February of 1998. In addition to browsing the archives in date sequence, you can also perform keyword searches of the BUSLIB-L archive at

http://lists.nau.edu/archives

"BEST OF BUSLIB-L" = Compiled by the MONTAGUE INSTITUTE REVIEW contains over 40 postings from BUSLIB-L that provide informative responses to frequently recurring questions. Best of BUSLIB-L is available from:
http://www.montague.com/review/buslibbest.html

This last archival option was independently developed. If you have any problems or questions with those archives, you need to contact the owners of those web sites.

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VACATIONS / HOLIDAYS / AWAY FROM COMPUTER / TEMPORARILY STOPPING BUSLIB-L POSTINGS:

If you know in advance that you will be unable to read your email on a timely basis, please adjust your BUSLIB-L options, before your collection of unread email creates havoc for your computer system.

Although various options exist, the best way to handle this, is to utilize the UNSUBSCRIBE command to sign off from the list. Later, when you are back up on your feet at your favorite computer, then you can send in the SUBSCRIBE command.

To sign-off / unsubscribe from BUSLIB-L before going on Vacation / Holiday / Away from your computer, you need to send the following message:

mailto:LISTSERV@LISTS.NAU.EDU
text: SIGNOFF BUSLIB-L
or you can use: UNSUBSCRIBE BUSLIB-L

To re-subscribe to BUSLIB-L when you are able to access your computer again, send this message:

mailto:LISTSERV@LISTS.NAU.EDU
text: SUBSCRIBE BUSLIB-L Your COMPLETE Name

There have been many cases of people who were away from their machines when their Internet service providers changed email protocols, creating problems for subscribers and the list.

By going through the UNSUBSCRIBE and SUBSCRIBE process, we are all assured that your email address is accurate. And you receive a current copy of BUSLIB-L's Welcome message and FAQ file each time you do this.

You also have the option of switching over to the digest version of BUSLIB-L, but that is not always the best option for everyone.

If you are away from your computer, and your email system has overflowed beyond capacity with unread email messages, your Internet service provider may ask us to remove you from BUSLIB-L. When this type of request is received from a service provider, your subscription will be terminated. You can reactivate your subscription after you clear up your backlog of unread email.

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Please note that it is impossible for a message to be canceled after you have transmitted it to BUSLIB-L.

BUSLIB-L's List Administrator has the ability & authority to cancel a subscription. If your participation on BUSLIB-L has been abusive, disruptive or dangerous with respect to other subscribers or against the integrity of the facilities & services that BUSLIB-L relies upon, then your subscription will be terminated.

Instances that have triggered the manual removal of accounts include:

-recursive looping of bounced mail

-mailboxes that have repeatedly overflowed

-"auto-reply" software that is not working properly

-instructions from an Internet service provider or an employer, that an e-mail account is not valid

-Internet service providers that ignore e-mail standards

In addition to the above, the List Administrator has the right to delete subscribers who repeatedly send posts that have nothing to do with the published focus of this list.

You can now process any of these commands on your BUSLIB-L subscription by using a web browser, and get instant confirmation of the changes.

This is a new user friendly web based system, available at:

In addition to the web interface, you can also use email based commands to modify your BUSLIB-L subscription at any time.

To determine your subscription status and delivery options for BUSLIB-L:

To switch to the once-per-day digest version of BUSLIB-L:

To switch to the individual mail version of BUSLIB-L:

To subscribe to BUSLIB-L:

To sign-off / unsubscribe from BUSLIB-L:

To post discussion items to BUSLIB-L:

-Send the text of your messages as e-mail to:
mailto:BUSLIB-L@LISTS.NAU.EDU

To see what files are available regarding BUSLIB-L:

To retrieve a specific file regarding BUSLIB-L:

--WHAT TO DO IN CASE "BUSLIB-L" MAIL STOPS ARRIVING:

First, use your web browser and check BUSLIB-L's archives to see when the most recent postings were distributed: http://LISTS.NAU.EDU/archives

You may be cancelled from BUSLIB-L without notification if various network/computer complications arise.

If you fail to receive BUSLIB-L messages for more than 48 hours, use the QUERY command to find out if your name is present on the distribution list. mailto:LISTSERV@LISTS.NAU.EDU
text: QUERY BUSLIB-L