Listservs are mailing distribution lists. When someone mails to the listserv's address, the message is resent to everyone that is "subscribed" to that listserv. The number of subscribers to a list can range anywhere from one person to hundreds of thousands. The listserv software on Barney is meant to handle smaller lists (<1000 subscribers) such as classes, academic discussion lists, etc.

The primary benefit of listservs is that the message is sent directly to the subscriber's e-mail address. This ensures that each and every subscriber receives the message as long as they check their e-mail. It also makes it easy for the person to respond back to the list or the original sender because the message is no different than any other e-mail message. With the added benefit of users being able to subscribe or unsubscribe from the list whenever they choose, using a listserv is an easy and flexible way to distribute information to students in a class, colleagues, etc.

There are only a few drawbacks of using listservs over other methods for distributing information. The first is that a copy of the message is sent to each and every subscriber. This can result in significant disk space consumption if there are a lot of subscribers on a single server (i.e., Barney) or if there are a lot of documents or files passed back and forth over the list. Another minor inconvenience is that many mail packages don't thread mail messages making a conversation slightly more difficult to follow. Finally, there is no automatic archiving of messages sent to the list; the individual subscribers are responsible for keeping any messages they want to keep.

Listserv services are available on Barney for faculty, staff, and student groups. To request that a list be created on Barney, pick up a Request to Host Mailing List on Barney form from Greg Francis in AD014 or http://barney.gonzaga.edu/tech/listrequest.html. Once you have completed the form, return it to Greg Francis in AD014 (or AD Box 92) and the list will be created within a few days.