Darwin-L Message Log 6:69 (February 1994)

Academic Discussion on the History and Theory of the Historical Sciences

This is one message from the Archives of Darwin-L (1993–1997), a professional discussion group on the history and theory of the historical sciences.

Note: Additional publications on evolution and the historical sciences by the Darwin-L list owner are available on SSRN.

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<6:69>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu  Sat Feb 12 22:04:21 1994

Date: Sat, 12 Feb 1994 23:07:32 -0400 (EDT)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: Today in the Historical Sciences
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro

Jim Croft raises a problem that I have long thought about, but don't really
have a solution to at the moment, namely that the "Today in the Historical
Sciences" messages don't necessarily arrive in everyone's mailbox on the
right day.  Ideally, the software that runs the list could take note of the
time zone of each subscriber, and could then send out time-dated material
of this sort on a staggered basis, so that each subscriber would receive the
messages at the appropriate time.  Unfortunately I doubt that any such feature
will be appear as long as listserv is in the hands of the mainframe people.
I'm hoping that someday we will be able to run all such services from our
desktop machines (that's now possible with gopher), and that when this happens
there will be more pressure to introduce clever features of this kind.  As
soon as someone comes up with a Mac-based listserv I'll put in a suggestion
for just this capability.

Jim also asks if there is a complete set of "Today in the Historical Sciences"
available via gopher or some other means.  Alas there isn't yet, because I
actually compile them as I go along, usually on the day itself or just a day
or two in advance, primarily from the _Dictionary of Scientific Biography_.
(This source accounts for the relative paucity of historical linguists, who
tend not to be included in the DSB.  I hope to rectify this imbalance
eventually; can anyone suggest a good source for biographical information on
linguists and/or historians?)  It certainly would be possible to extract the
the entries that have been posted since Darwin-L opened (last September) and
to occasionally update that list as new messages appear.  That would give us
a partial set, and once we've been here a year it could be consulted for party
planning, etc. (a use of which I highly approve).  ;-)  Would that be helpful?

Bob O'Hara, Darwin-L list owner

Robert J. O'Hara (darwin@iris.uncg.edu)
Center for Critical Inquiry and Department of Biology
100 Foust Building, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Greensboro, North Carolina 27412 U.S.A.

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