You have two options for keeping up with Readership building ideas. You can receive email alerts from the Readership Institute whenever a new report or resource becomes available. To be included on our email alert list, send an email to institute@readership.org.

Your second option is to participate in an email discussion of readership building ideas with other people in the newspaper industry. We do this via the Readership listserv.

The Readership listserv has been created by the Readership Institute to facilitate the exchange of ideas, information, and research about growing newspaper readership. The listserv is maintained for discussion of daily newspaper readership issues among employees of daily newspapers and related industry associations; listserv membership is limited to these employees. We at the Readership Institute will use it to share information with you, and we want you to use it to share ideas, experiments, questions and concerns with each other.

If you are unfamiliar with listservs, email sent to the listserv is automatically distributed to every member of the group. Likewise, replies to listserv messages are distributed to the entire group. The result can be a lively conversation that shifts easily from topic to topic, just like a discussion in your living room, except that geography no longer matters. (You can always send off-list replies by addressing them to an individual's email address. But remember if you simply click on the "Reply" button, your message goes to the whole list.)

Here's the important stuff:

Registration is required and the discussion is monitored by us but not moderated.

1. To join, send an email to lists@northwestern.edu.
   Leave the subject field blank. In the body of the email message write:

   subscribe READERSHIP Yourfirstname Yourlastname

   eg: subscribe READERSHIP John Doe

   When you are successfully subscribed, you will receive a "Welcome" message. Save this message, for it explains how to post messages to the listserv, how to unsubscribe, and change your list settings.
   

2. To post a message to the group, send your email to readership@listserv.it.northwestern.edu.

   It is helpful to other members of the group if you put the subject of your message in the subject field of your email.

3. If the number of emails you receive from the listserv becomes burdensome, you can elect to receive a single, daily digest of that day's messages instead of the individual emails (although this makes it harder to engage in the conversation). To do this, send an email to lists@northwestern.edu.

   Leave the subject field blank. In the body of the email message, put:

   set READERSHIP mail digest

4. If you wish to be removed from the listserv, send an email to lists@northwestern.edu.

   Leave the subject field blank. In the body of the email message, put:

   unsubscribe READERSHIP

5. If you have problems with technical aspects of the list, email the list's owner and let us know. The list's owner is d-sahlin@northwestern.edu.

This list is unmoderated, although we do monitor it, meaning the discussion is open and the Readership Institute does not filter messages. We approve membership on the list and only members may post messages to the list. Other than that and a few common sense guidelines, the list is yours to use.

Here are the basic guidelines:

Please keep the discussion on the topic of newspaper readership. Off-topic discussions can clutter the list and frustrate other members.

Please do not post copyrighted material, Internet posts, etc., without the express permission of the copyright owner. Remember, newspaper articles are copyrighted. Also, PLEASE DO NOT CIRCULATE READERSHIP POSTS TO ANY OTHER SITE, ON OR OFF OF THE NET, WITHOUT THE ORIGINATOR'S PERMISSION. All original material posted to this list is the property of the originator, under the copyright laws of the U.S., and it is critical that all subscribers acknowledge and respect that ownership.

Please do not post attachments to the entire list; please do not post personal data about another person (home address, telephone number, etc.) to the list or to any listmember without the permission of that person (business data are generally OK).

Please do not use the Readership listserv for any commercial purpose. This list exists to provide a forum for discussions about readership and readership research.

You are joining a very informed and informative group. Please don't be bashful. If you have questions, ideas, opinions, experiences, or crazy notions, feel free to share them with the list, to answer the queries of others, and to keep the conversation lively.