Dartmouth maintains a merged list of the LISTSERV and manually maintained lists on Bitnet and the Interest Group lists on the Internet. It is a single file with one line for each mailing list. The list has been updated monthly for the last year and has a stable format. Each line consists of seven fields, delimited by tabs. The list contains information about approximately 2,200 lists. The fields are: Category (Computing, Science, Humanities, etc) List name "Mail to" address for submitting to the list for distribution "Command to" address for subscribing, unsubing and other administratrivia One line description of the list subject Email address for the owner of the list Long description of the list, up to 450 characters. This list-of-lists differs from some similiar lists and the list returned by sending the LIST GLOBAL command to a backbone LISTSERV in that: a) Duplicate entries are deleted b) Lists obviously intended only for local use are omitted c) Information about the lists is field delimited, allowing simple parsing d) Both Internet and Bitnet lists are included e) A text description of the purpose of the list is provided The flat data file containing the list-of-lists information can be obtained by mail by sending the command SEND LISTTEXT PACKAGE to [log in to unmask] This will return five files which can be concatenated to form the full list. An editor can then be used to crudely search this text file. A short form of the text form of the list can be obtained with the command SEND LISTSHRT PACKAGE to [log in to unmask] This will return a five lists (by category) containing only three fields: Mail to Address, Subscription to Address, and a one line description of the list. A Macintosh Hypercard application is available to format, display and search the list-of-lists. To get the Binhexed Hypercard application as well as the data files it uses, use the command SEND MACSIG PACKAGE to [log in to unmask] A VM/CMS Xedit/Rexx application is available to format, display and search the list-of-lists. To get the VM/CMS application as well as the data files it uses, use the command SEND CMSSIG PACKAGE to [log in to unmask] These are BIG files; the text data file alone is around a half mbyte. If you are on the Internet, you may want to recover the files via FTP rather than mail. The files are available by anonymous FTP to DARTCMS1.DARTMOUTH.EDU <129.170.16.19> in directory SIGLISTS. To obtain the text file by anonymous FTP, enter the following commands: FTP DARTCMS1.DARTMOUTH.EDU ANONYMOUS CD SIGLISTS GET READ.ME GET LISTSERV.LISTS QUIT The list-of-lists is updated monthly. You can use the LISTSERV AFD command to automatically get fresh copies by mail whenever the files are updated, or use the LISTSERV FUI command to get an automatic notification of the update by mail so you can get a new copy by FTP. To use either command you will probably want to assign yourself a password on the DARTCMS1 listserv. Send the following commands to LISTSERV@DARTCMS1: PW ADD <new_password> AFD ADD <package_name> PACKAGE SIGLISTS or PW ADD <new_password> FUI ADD <package_name> PACKAGE SIGLISTS In addition to the files maintained at Dartmouth, a VAX RDB/VMS software package is available on the Internet only from vax.muskingum.edu and requires BASIC. The directory dartmouth contains the files: *.EXE *.RDB *.SNP DARTMOUTH.DOC You may contact Lewis Dreblow ([log in to unmask]) for more information of the VAX interface to the Dartmouth list-of-lists. * * * * * * * * * * * * David Avery * BITNET: DAVID@DARTCMS1 * System Manager for VM/CMS * INTERNET: [log in to unmask] * Dartmouth College * SMAIL: Kiewit Computation Center * vox clamantis in deserto * Hanover, New Hampshire 03755 * * * * * * * * * * * * *