Listserver Mailing Lists

Contacting groups of people quickly and easily via email

Listserver is an electronic list service that helps you communicate with people via email. It could be a small number working on something at LJMU, a larger project with a mix of external people on it, or even thousands signing up for a newsletter about something you want to publicise. Whatever the group of people, a distribution list with Listserver will help make this easier to do.

You maintain the membership of who is on the list so no contact with PLN is needed once the list is setup.

Lists can also be used to maintain access to File Shares, Printers, Scanning, Sharepoint and many other LJMU services.

Before getting a list setup there are some settings and important information you need to know & understand.

List owner - Lists must have a primary owner. The primary owner is the only one that can send listserver commands. Additional owners are possible but these can only alter the list via the Outlook Address Book.

Open / Closed List - Do you want people to be able to add or remove themselves automatically without any intervention from you? Open means they are able to do this. Closed means you have to agree to any changes.

Security - Who can send email to the list? Just yourself, a few chosen people, anyone on the list or the entire world.

This is important, to stop possible spamming, to restrict who sees the emails and also to stop unwanted email conversations starting.

Joining information - If you add someone via Listserver, they receive a short sentence telling why they have been added and what the list is for. This message is optional and can be switched off.

Listserver Commands - To get a summary of available commands, send an email to listserver@ljmu.ac.uk with a message of "Help".

Please read the important information below

People outside the university receiving an email from a distribution list MUST be given the ability to unsubscribe from the list. Every single message sent must contain an option to unsubscribe.  Best practice is to include a simple explanation of how someone can leave the list at the bottom of every message. e.g. To leave the list at any time, send an email to <mailto:listserver@livjm.ac.uk> with this command:  unsubscribe "listname" 

When sending an email normally you put recipients’ email addresses in either the TO: or the CC: field. When sending to a distribution list which may contain many hundreds or even thousands of people, it is recommended that you put the distribution list name in the BCC: field. This has the effect of hiding the name of the distribution list from the recipients can prevent many intentional or accidental ‘Reply to All’ messages being sent.

For more details on using Listserver commands, click here.

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