Hit the DELETE key if you are fed up with this discussion. I wasn't going to jump back into this fracas, but I must respond to Janice. First of all, I don't see a "lighten up" comment as a personal attack on Gillian. I think we all know this is a volunteer (and, for the most part, thankless) task and Gillian has done a superb job. She is not the "moderator" since this is an unmoderated list and, ipso-facto, can have no moderator. She is the facilitator, for lack of a better word, and a very good one at that. Going back into the history of this list for a minute, a few years ago there was a similar discussion about personal or out of scope messages being sent to the list. Some favored going to a moderated list. The group was overwhelmingly against such a move. We all (or most) felt that having a free and open, uncensored discussion was far preferable to having a moderated list to protect us from the occasional out of scope or personal message. Gillian was doing what she assumed was part of her job, trying to keep the list within scope. I think we've all learned from this that most of us do not mind, in fact object to the restriction of the occasional personal message. All the "lighten up" comment was meant to do, as I perceive it, was to let Gillian know she needn't worry about this sort of thing to the extent she was. I've been set to "nomail" for a while so missed the discussion on putting the "chat" before this sort of message. Still, I think my "it's a boy" subject was pretty clear as to what followed. Thanks to all of you who sent your kind words, ALL of which came directly to me, thank you very much. As a group, we medical librarians are a great bunch, but let's not take ourselves too seriously on every single issue. Now, let's get back to professional issues. How about those Broncos!! Tom Thomas Williams, Director (334) 460-6885 Biomedical Library and Media (334) 460-7638(fax) Production Services University of South Alabama [log in to unmask] College of Medicine http://southmed.usouthal.edu BML 326B Mobile, Alabama 36688-0002 On Fri, 23 Jan 1998, Swiatek, Janice wrote: > I am uncomfortable with anyone responding to a list moderator with > "lighten up." This is a volunteer position, and this is the woman who > is responsible for following the guidelines of the list. She takes the > heat for duplicate messages and inappropriate (vendor, etc) postings. > If we have difficulty with the MEDLIB-L policy, could we respond to > that and not make it a personalized attack of Gillian? > > > Janice Swiatek > Director, Information Resource Center > Leukemia Society of America > 600 Third Avenue, 4th Floor > New York, NY 10016 > phone: 212-450-8815 > fax: 212-681-3615 > [log in to unmask] > > > > > > > > >