Electronic discussion lists provide subscribers with information on what's going on in RUSA or in the sections. How to join the lists is explained here.

Electronic Discussion Lists

While RUSA is exploring a number of social networking avenues for facilitating communication for members, the bedrock of interactive communications remains in our electronic mailing lists, such as RUSA-l and SENIORSERV, as well as the section lists such as MARS-l, RSS-l, and STARS-l.

The following policies and guidelines for participation in the RUSA-L electronic discussion list were approved by the RUSA Board of Directors on January 24, 2006. Please send any questions to the RUSA Board through the RUSA Office at or by calling 1-800-545-2433, ext. 4395. The sections may have their own policies but be guided by the following commonsense rules:

Only subscribers may post to the list.
Announcements of conferences, workshops, new publications, and position openings appropriate to the list are allowed.
All messages should relate to the general topic of the list.
Attachments may not be included.
Posting of defamatory and/or offensive material is strictly prohibited, including but not limited to hate-speech, name-calling and personal insults. Respect the rights of others. Remember that an electronic discussion is a commons. Be civil. Treat others the way you wish to be treated.
All postings must be free of copyright restrictions that limit distribution. Indicate whether users are authorized to copy, print, and or distribute the document.
The RUSA Executive Committee has the right to remove members of the list who fail to participate as required by the policies stated in this document.

RUSA Electronic Discussion Group

NOTE: As of May 2007, all ALA Electronic discussion lists have been moved to a new, open-source mailing list application called Sympa. Sympa provides ALA members a Web site for handling subscriptions and dropping subscriptions much more readily than the previous tool used by ALA. It also allows ALA list subscribers to search archives, change mail options, and more. Essentially, this system allows you better control over how you use our mailing lists.

Set up your account

If you haven't already, please go to the ALA Mailing Lists site and choose "login" from the upper left corner of the page. Log in if you have an account; if not, click on the button that says "Send me a password." Once you log in, you'll be able to change your preferences, see which ALA lists you belong to, change how you receive them, and more.

Account preferences If you change your e-mail address or your name, you can log in, choose "preferences" from the upper right corner, and change the relevant information yourself.

Modify your account Once you've received your password in your e-mail, log in and choose "Your subscriptions" from the upper right corner. This will show you all ALA lists to which you've subscribed. Click on any of your lists. If you choose "subscriber options," you can change the way you receive mail from the lists (digest, normal, nomail, etc.) along with a description of what each reception method means. The "nomail" option, for example, allows you to continue to be a member of the list without receiving any mail—a great option for vacations or medical leave periods.

Archives Archives are now easily searchable and viewable by month. To search, choose the list from which you wish to fin archives, and click on "archives" in the left-hand navigation. Enter your search term in the box. If you'd rather go by date, the calendar at the top of the Archives page shows archives by month and year to 1998; choose the month you're looking for and you can view all posts to that particular list during that month.

How to Sign Up

There are two ways to subscribe to RUSA-L:

Send an e-mail to sympa@ala.org
In the Subject line, put: SUBSCRIBE RUSA-L YOUR NAME
For Example, SUBSCRIBE RUSA-L Jane Smith
Do not put anything in the body of the message
Go to the ALA Mailing Lists service described above and follow that procedure.

When your request to subscribe has been approved by the list owners, you will receive an e-mail welcome message.

These directions can be used for any open ALA list, substituting list names appropriately.

How to Unsubscribe (Sign Off)

These instruction apply to any list supported by RUSA: send message to sympa@ala.org. In the body of the message, type "unsubscribe listname" without quotes and using the name of the list in place of "listname."

To Change Ownership of a List

You can only do this if you are the owner of the list. Follow these steps:

1. Go to ALA Mailing Lists Web site
2. Log in
3. Click on "Your Subscriptions"
4. Find the list you want to work with and click on it
5. Click on "List Admin" (menu on left in red box)
6. Click on "Edit List Config"
7. Click on "List Definition"
8. Look for "Owners" section and make changes (Replace old owners with new owners)
9. Click on Update button at bottom of screen