ARCHIVED: What is LISTSERV?

This content has been archived, and is no longer maintained by Indiana University. Information here may no longer be accurate, and links may no longer be available or reliable.

Note: IU retired its LISTSERV system in spring 2012, replacing it with IU List, a new mailing list service. See About IU List

LISTSERV is L-Soft International, Inc.'s software for managing mailing lists. It enables a large group of people to communicate effectively with one another without requiring each person to maintain a mailing list of all the other participants. Additionally, LISTSERV can archive postings in a searchable online database, send indexed digests to participants instead of individual messages, and make sets of files publicly accessible by email.

LISTSERV is only one type of electronic mailing list software. Other types of shared public mailing lists include Sympa (the software behind IU List) lists, Majordomo lists, Procmail lists, and LISTPROC.

LISTSERV is effective at combating spam, a frequent problem with shared mailing lists. Since LISTSERV servers communicate with each other, when one server detects a spam file, it notifies all the other servers, so that each server can cut off the unwanted messages.

For more about LISTSERV, see L-Soft Documentation and Manuals.

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Last modified on 2019-07-26 08:34:20.