The online survey on list members views on commercial postings to this list
has now concluded and the results are available at
<http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/surveys.cgi> - select the Concluded
surveys option.

There were 56 responses (5% of the membership).

The majority of responses showed a tolerance of commercial postings from
professional such as CILIP and Aslib and postings from commercial vendors in
response to user queries.  However a slight majority did not want
unsolicited product announcements.

The following comments were also made:

# There are other places where this kind of information is readily
available. Allowing adverts could swamp the list.
# Training information is useful, unsolicited commercial advertising is not
(not sure where you can draw the line sometimes). Asking for review of a
library related product or service from other members is useful discussion
and feedback, but not from the commercial providers themselves.
# I wouldn't want the list to become an advertising forum, but, for example,
where people are interested in solving a particular problem, and there is a
commercial solution, then I can't see why this shouldn't be circulated.
Also, I would want to be able to continue to circulate details of our
courses on the list.
# I don't think there is a major problem, I'd prefer to know about services
than not know.
# As this survey states at the the beginning - these commercial postings can
and do give an opportunity for information that you may not have heard about
in other ways. If people do not wish to read these emails it is very easy to
delete them.
# As long as the signal-to-noise ratio doesn't slip in favour of vendors
flogging their wares, I don't see much of a problem. If it gets too bad, how
about a "commercial posts only" listserv? Possibly sponsored by library
service vendors.
# I feel we need to strike a balance - this is not a place for commerical
organistions to hawk their wares, but as an Open List, if they see a query
which they feel they can feel, they should be able to respond, at least
Offline, but not initiate. As to postings from professional bodies, why not?
the only issue for me is for events which are to far away to be of practical
value.
# The use of this mailing list by commercial suppliers for the advertisement
of their products and services is inappropriate. This is effectively
bypassing the controls on sending unsolicited e-mails by broadcasting to a
list, unless the list subscribers specifically agree that it is acceptable
for the list to be used in this way.
# Details of training courses are very useful but allowing posting of
commercial products (other than training courses) could open the floodgates
at some point. Don't see any reason why colleagues can't recommend products
they use.
# I think it is legitimate to inform the profession about courses, meetings
etc, or new relevant publications. I would only object if these adverts were
for other goods or services - e.g. accommodation, general publishing.
However this is not a topic about which I have very stong views (so why have
I filled in the survey...?)
# It is a seconds task to delete anything you are not interested in. Now
what does annoy me is peoples out of office being circulated...
# courses advertised by industry recognised organisations help us maintain
and develop our skills. Increasingly, training is advertised via the web
rather than paper - so web adverts are necessary
# I would have liked an option less than strongly and more than neutral
especially on q2!
# Sensible use of the mailing list is valuable for all.
# I feel that the list generally provides a wide range of discussion
threads, and although some of these are commercial, they do not detract from
the usefulness of the list.
# I feel that commercial information can be helpful
# Some emails announcing a new product could be useful. What I find
irritating is endless emails listing libraries who have signed up to
different products/systems.
# Ruling out commercial postings would wipe out a useful source of
information.
# I am strongly against the selling out of public libraries and any
commercial notices should be banned from the list. An open free public
library spirit should be restored. In the list issues should be discussed.
Each company, corporation, including CILIP and so on, should contact
colleagues through their own channels and not abuse the list; they should
all be banned!
# There is a lot of traffic regarding training courses - many of which are
at the other end of the country!
# I feel that commercial posting should be allowed but should be clearly
identified as such in the Subject field
# I typically receive the same adverts for training courses by professional
organisations about 3 times each. - total overkill because they post to
every remotely relevant listserv. I would also suspect that fewer and fewer
of us (certainly in the NHS) have any money to attend these courses, so
their emails are effectively spam. That said, my delete key works perfectly
well! I would definitely agree with the banning of unsolicited product
announcements, since we are bombarded with these constantly through other
mechanisms too e.g. everytime we google!
# I am inundated with information enough as it is - the sheer quantity of
emails that I have to wade through on the lists is enough to take a chunk of
time out of my day, which I can ill afford.
# Agreed
# What a rotten set of options! I may agree or disagree with some of these -
but not strongly. So have been forced to select Neutral in some cases.
# I am keen that professional organisations should be able to submit details
of training courses. I do not want to see the list used as an advertising
vehicle for suppliers.
# I feel that information on facet publishing, and courses of various kinds
relating to the library profession is perfectly acceptable part of the lists
correspondence. Information outside of this is not appreciated, but from my
first subscription to present I cannot recall seeing any messages I did not
consider acceptable on the list.
# The product needs to be related to the discussion to make any sense.
# I feel that if the commercial postings come from companies who supply to
libraries, this may well be useful. People already post requests for
information on particular services or products, and there would still be the
opportunity to respond to an advert by asking the list if anyone knows if it
is as good as it says it is. However, I would object to anything posted
which does not relate to libraries (spamming, etc.)
# The whole thing here is relevance. If the product is relevant to the
enquiry then that's great. It's also useful to get comments from suppliers
if theri product is being discussed. Would a solution perhaps be for
comerical organisations to be able to have a non-posting membership with
comments if apporpiate to be posted by the list owner?
# In the context of discussion, commercial information can be helpful. 'Cold
calling' to the list is a different issue unless it relates to training and
service development.
# I can see why commercial postings might irritate people (especially when
one gets multiple copies of a training course, say), but actually postings
about services and training programmes are potentially very useful and
relevant. We should have a wide knowledge of what people are offering -
whether it is CILIP, commercial organisations or public libraries offering
free events. I feel it would be a shame to lose these, just so we can save 5
seconds deleting a few emails
# The level of commercial postings we receive at the moment is not too
large. If it escalated to say more than 10 per day then I would be unhappy
and would want them to be banned.
# If the volume of postings - especially ones that do not interest me i.e
commercial postings incl. training - increase, I may consider leaving the
group.
# I feel that this list is about development, and for development one needs
to hear ideas. I think that it might be better to have an option to warn and
then bar individuals or suppliers if they persistently post generic product
sales pitches, but new products have new features, and so alerting library
professionals to them is OK, even if hard selling is not. I think it is
completely an expected norm that we as professionals should be expected to
use judgement and be able to manage our email in the 21st century! Deleting
the odd irrelevant posting should be possible without bothering else by
making such a big deal out of it Sometimes it seems some people seem to be
more interestied in the rules than in learning and researching ideas.

In light of this feedback, list members from commercial vendors should
refrain from posting product announcements to this list.

Thanks to all the respondents.

Brian Kelly 

--------------------------------
Brian Kelly
UKOLN, University of Bath, BATH, UK, BA2 7AY
Email: [log in to unmask]
Phone: +44 1225 383943