Internet Research Newsgroups & Listservs

Newsgroups Newsgroups have little to do with – news. They are electronic discussion boards or bulletin boards. People must visit (messages do not come by ). They leave messages or ask questions.

Listservs Listservs are electronic mailing lists. The name was trademarked by L-Soft, which developed Listserv software. Listservs deliver messages to and from people who have signed up for the list. The messages can come one at a time or in a one-message digest each day.

Effective research tools Newsgroups and listservs are effective research tools. Researchers can find out trends, tap public opinion, contact experts and make contacts.

Finding experts through listservs To participate in a list, you must first subscribe. Usually, subscribing is free. Often lists are supervised or moderated. Because people must register, because the volume of mail can be heavy, listservs usually attract people who are interested in, and know a lot about, the topic: A good place to find experts.

Making contact Once you have a research topic, you can subscribe to a listserv devoted to the topic. Messages can teach you more about the topic and put you in touch with experts or people with experience.

Example: Online news For example, if you were interested in online news, you could join an online news listserv. You would get messages a day (or one digest with messages) from people interested in, or working in, online news.

Lurking and asking You could “lurk” on the list – observing the discussion without participating. Or you could pose a question to the group or to individuals through .

Finding listservs Close to 100,00 listservs exist. A number of web sites organize and categorize listservs so you can search on your topic. once was the main site. It now brings you to another good site: will give you information on specific lists. is the “official” catalog of listserv lists.

Using newsgroups Internet researchers will not find “news” on newsgroups. They will find opinions, stories, anecdotes, ideas and people who care a lot about a topic.

Finding newsgroups More than 80,000 newsgroups exist. The BEST place to find a directory and archives of groups was Deja formerly DejaNews: Surprise: You will be taken to Google, which recently bought Deja.

Groups at Google and Yahoo You can search Google Groups by Usenet categories, such as alt (alternative) or biz ( for business). Yahoo also has gotten into the groups business, though without the extensive Deja archives bought by Google.

Example: E-commerce Suppose you were doing research on electronic commerce. You could find a group on biz.e-commerce at Google and subscribe or read past messages. You could search ecommerce at Yahoo groups. You could get ideas. You could make contacts.

Archives: Lists For listservs and newsgroups, researchers often find it useful to look back over archives of discussions. You can often search individual lists by your subject and find everything that has been written by the group.

Archives: Groups Groups/Google says it offers 20 years of archives with over 700 million messages. You could go to Groups at Google and read through archives from past months, even years.

Profnet A great resource for finding experts is Profnet – Professors’ Network. University professors often are experts in their subject area. Profnet allows you to find them. By Or the web:

Communities as research “Virtual community” is a name sometimes given to lists or groups where people get together and exchange opinions and ideas. “Community” is used purposefully. People can and do become a community online. And that community can be a tool for the Internet researcher.