In the last few days, John Mark Ockerbloom announced that he is retiring the 10 year old Book People mailing list. I only caught the tail end of this run but the discussions on their were very good indeed. It seems that anyone who took part also thought the same. Here follows the post (in full) John made announcing the decision.
I’d like to let listmembers know that on Friday, November 30, I will cease forwarding submissions for the Book People mailing list, and the list will end its run of over 10 years.
I intend to keep the archives online even after list activity ends.
There have been a lot of developments in the world of free online text since the list started in 1997, and the archive may be useful to some folks as one chronicle of these developments, and of what people providing and reading books online were talking and asking about.Also, both my websites and Mary’s will continue as normal to be maintained and to add new links and other material.
I remain very interested, both personally and professionally, in promoting universally accessible online literature and knowledge. In many ways, there’s a much richer environment online than there was ten years ago, but still a lot of unrealized potential. I intend to keep promoting free online libraries, and encouraging others to get involved with them, and talk about them, well into the future. I’m planning a new online site for this and related topics; details and implementations are still being worked out, but I hope to tell you more and invite you all when it gets set up.
But I wanted to first give you sufficient advance warning about the planned shutdown. I know from conversations last spring that many of you value the mailing list format, and I’m sorry that I won’t be continuing that for you. I hope that, with a three-week lead time, folks can wrap up existing conversations, or invite people to other (existing or new) forums that might be of interest, whether those are mailing lists, blogs, or some other online forum. And if you’ve been lurking and hoping to ask or tell the 500+ subscribers of this list something related to free online books, now’s your chance.
I want to thank everyone who’s provided books over the Net, contributed to discussions here, or supported those efforts in some way. I’ve enjoyed hearing what you’ve had to say, and I hope I’ll continue to hear from you and see more things that you produce in the years to come.
John Mark Ockerbloom
Moderator, Book People mailing list