emv@ox.com (Ed Vielmetti) (03/13/91)
Archive-name: mail/guides/interest-groups/1991-03-11
Archive: ftp.nisc.sri.com:/netinfo/interest-groups [192.33.33.53]
Original-posting-by: emv@ox.com (Ed Vielmetti)
Original-subject: Re: Government Information
Reposted-by: emv@msen.com (Edward Vielmetti, MSEN)
In article <1991Mar11.154419.179@biivax.dp.beckman.com> rlmeyering@biivax.dp.beckman.com writes:
What newsgroup is used for inquiries about government information.
For example, I want an electronic copy of the congressional register.
Where would I post this request and other requests similiar in nature?
Best group I know of for this purpose would be GOVDOC-L, a mailing
list. Information on how to join it should be in one of the lists of
mailing lists; in this particular case it's a BITNET list, but in
general you wouldn't know that before you started to look. (how do I
know this you ask? I used to read govdoc-l every so often.)
There is a list traditionally called the "Arpanet List of Lists" kept on
ftp.nisc.sri.com:/netinfo/interest-groups
which has nice, well-formatted descriptions of how to subscribe to all
sorts of differnet lists. It's big (500K), there are a lot of people
talking out there. There's a mailing list associated with it, join it
by sending mail to interest-groups-request@nisc.sri.com; if you have
started a list that you want others to know about, again send mail
there. There is a mail server that goes along with this site; the
address is "mail-server@nisc.sri.com". Ideally they would have some
sort of way of mailing you the nice entry about just one list, but I
really don't know. (looks like they don't have a way, though I can
think of one...) Beware that any half a megabyte list will have some
errors in it!
Within this list you will find:
GovDoc-L%PSUVM.BITNET@VM1.NODAK.EDU
Mailing list with a focus is specifically on issues of information
dissemination through Federal Depository Libraries. Issues to be discussed
include: electronic dissemination policies of the Government Printing
Office(GPO), the 1990 Census, access to Federal documents (Freedom of
Information Act issues), automation of document collections in libraries
(Marcive v. OCLC tapes; database consideration; retrospective conversion;
etc.), document end user education and legislation related to depository
libraries. United Nations, State and Foreign Government documents can be
included for discussion.
The list is moderated but uncensored. It is edited with the intention of
producing a digest at the end of the year.
BitNet users may subscribe by sending the following command via mail or an
interactive message to LISTSERV@PSUVM:
SUB GovDoc-L Your full name
where "Your full name" is your real name, not your login Id.
Non-BitNet users can join the list be sending the above command as the only
line in the text/body of a message to LISTSERV%PSUVM.BITNET@VM1.NODAK.EDU.
Coordinators: Diane Kovacs <KOVACSD%BKNLVMS.BITNET@VM1.NODAK.EDU>
Michael J. Kovacs <KOVACS%BKNLVMS.BITNET@VM1.NODAK.EDU>
This may or may not meet your requirements.
Some BITNET lists are gatewayed into the "bit.listserv.*"
distribution, that is to say if your site has it you may be able to
dispense with this "SUB GovDoc-L My Name" routine and just join
"bit.listserv.govdoc-l".
You can have a list of all of the BITNET lists send to you by sending
a listserv the command "LIST GLOBAL". it's about 165K from
psuvm.psu.edu; your mailer may have restrictions on how big a message
can be blorted at it in one chunk. Grepping through this list for
"government" yields
GOVDOC-L GOVDOC-L@PSUVM (Peered) Discussion of Government Document I
I don't see any way to do that search on the remote side so that the
whole file doesn't have to be sent.
Sending a "review govdoc-l" to see if this is the list you want yields
a big long list of everyone who has subscribed, a few redistribution
points on the BITNET, and perhaps some indication of who is in charge.
The charter (as seen in list-of-lists) doesn't seem to be available
tho.
There's no indication anywhere that I can see where to get past issues
of GOVDOC-L; I'd launch a message at one of the coordinators to see
what came back.
What would be really handy would be a way to remotely do searches
through the vast morass of mailing lists and newsgroups and extract
key words from their group description, charter, or frequently asked
questions list.
--
Msen Edward Vielmetti
/|--- moderator, comp.archives
emv@msen.com