The Internet is full of information of every kind. You only have to find what you are searching for. More than 40 million people around the world regularly participate in Internet forums. These groups discuss special topics which you might be interested in. Using email to communicate, there are more than 90,000 mailinglists. And the readers of at least 50,000 newsgroups exchange information and opinions on the Usenet. There are of course special sites which will help you to find the right group for you.

Find lists in master lists

You can find mailinglists either by searching the World Wide Web for master lists which contain information about all email lists or by sending an email to the listservs. The listservs are the first and still most prevalent type of mailinglist processors around. (Two other kinds are majordomo and listproc - don't worry about the terms yet, just know that there are different types of lists.) Your mail command will search the master lists on listservs. You can search the 17,500 public listserv lists by send a simple message to this address: listserv@listserv.net. Leave the subject line of the message head blank, and in the message body write:

Where xyz equals a search string of your choice. For example, sending the command list global astro will return a list of all known listservs relating to astronomy, but also including any and all lists that contain the string "astro". You can join these lists to keep yourself informed, ask questions or search the existing archives.

Find lists on the web

Another way to find some of the 85,000 mailinglists is by searching the master lists which have a gateway to the World Wide Web. If you want to write about poodles for example, you simply use the keyword "poodle" to search the list archives. It will pull up a whole list containing all known mailinglists on the chosen topic. On the Web based search sites you can often choose between searching in mailinglists or in newsgroups or both. Every search site has search tips which you should read, even if you have the feeling: come on, I already know this. In order to use every possibility - read them. Every site is different, and so are the commands for searching the mailinglists.

By the way: If you look for an excelent list about journalism, you might want to join CARR-L, (Computer Assisted Reserach and Reporting) an excellent mailinglist for all reporters and journalists. To subscribe send an email to listserv@ulkyvm.louisville.edu with the line SUBSCRIBE CARR-L your-real-name in the message-body.

Some useful sites to search mailinglists and newsgroups

Google Groups (Formerly: Deja)
http://groups.google.com/
Even though most of this page dealt with mailinglists and not with newsgroups, you shouldn't forget about them. The reason we didn't write so much about the newsgroups is because they are much easier to find. Not least because of Google Groups. This service searches 50,000 present discussion forums and newsgroups for you, and also several archived ones. It is particularly valuable, because it does not only find the right group for you but allows for a full-text-search of all articles written in the newsgroups since 1995 - i.e. more than 650 million messages posted. And these articles often contain information and point to many resources that might not be found through web searches. It also is a good way to find a brand new web site that other engines have not yet indexed. It offers both a basic and a power search. The power search lets you control what terms are included in returns, and various controls on the format of the returned information.

Barbara Croll Fought's Newhouse Net Lists http://web.syr.edu/~bcfought/nnl1.html
A truly excellent compilation of mailinglists that deal with all kinds of journalism.

Liszt
http://www.liszt.com/
A very useful site is "Liszt". It contains more than 90,000 mailinglists (Jan 1999). Along with "listserv", "majordomo" and "listproc" lists, this site's archives contain independently-managed lists that are often hard to locate. Besides mailinglists, directories of newsgroups and even directories of IRC, the Internet Relay Chat Net, are archived on Liszt.

Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists
http://www.paml.net
This site on the Web is a version of the monthly updated Usenet version. You can search for mailinglists by name or subject in alphabetical order (Index) or by keyword (Search). You also find some FAQ (frequently asked questions) dealing with mailinglists in general.

The Directory of Scholarly and Professional E-Conferences
http://www.kovacs.com/directory.html
The directory screens, evaluates and organises mailinglists, newsgroups, MUDs, MOOs, interactive Web chat groups, e-conferences on topics of interest to scholars and professionals, etc. It is specialised in academic lists ("acadlist"). On the "how to use" link you can find help to get access to archives of mailing lists and e-conferences. You can search the directory by field search or global search. You can have the results ordered by category or alphabetically.

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