There are a few directories that cater more to academic and professional interests. Explore these as well. We hope you find a discussion group which suits you.

L-Soft International

L-Soft (www.lsoft.com/lists/listref.html) is the best place to check for the Listserv type of mailing list (ie the mailing list that is run on Listserv software). The CataList is a catalog of over 70,000 public listservs. L-Soft makes searching easy, and gives clear instructions.

You might like to check which lists have over 10,000 subscribers. Many of these look somewhat commercial such as dentalplans@listserv.karizmaoffers.com. Those with smaller numbers of subscribers look more like real groups.

Find a List at ListSoft

You need a laugh and would like to find a mailing list that specializes in humour.

1. Go to L-Soft and Search for a mailing list of interest. (Be careful NOT to search for a Listserv site of interest).
2. Try searching for humor or humour or even funny. Enter a comma between the terms in order to OR them: humor,humour,funny.
3. You will find many. Pick one of the lists and click on its name. Read the instructions for subscribing.

For Librarians

A friend subscribes to BusLib-L in order to learn more about business resources on the Net and ways to find them. You would like to subscribe also but don't know how.

1. Search for it at L-Soft . Enter buslib-l in the search box.
2. L-Soft gives very basic information about the features of the list. For this list, there is also a link to a searchable Web archive.

Diane Kovacs Directory of Scholarly and Professional E-conferences

Diane Kovacs Directory (www.kovacs.com/directory) was one of the first collections of mailing lists. Diane Kovacs included the full range of e-conference kinds of groups (mailing lists, newsgroups, Web message boards or forums, muds and moos). This is a bare-bones listing without dates or links. The collection is likely falling out of date. Best to confirm that a group still exists by running a search at Google.

Find a List at Kovacs

Let's say you're looking for a list related to horticulture. Go to the Search page. In the box for Broad Category, select Life Sciences from the dropdown menu. Then get the Sub-Categories and select Horticulture. Several discussion groups are listed with description and subscription information.

Try the search engine. Use the keyword search for ancient greece. The engine looks for either word. There is no syntax.

Where to next?

Learn more about subscribing and participating.