NativeNet: possible slowdown

Gary S. Trujillo (gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us)
Wed, 8 Jun 1994 02:07:10 -0500

This is a note to tell you that things might be a bit sluggish on NATIVE-L
and the other NativeNet lists for the next week (from today, 8 June through
next Wednesday, 15 June), since I will be attending two conferences (the
USENIX conference - which concerns the UNIX operating system, and the
National Educational Computing Conference). Both conferences are in Boston,
so I will be able to spend some time each day taking care of article
approvals in the evenings, but I will not be able to respond to requests
as quickly as I like to generally. I suggest, in fact, that it might be
best to hold any non time-sensitive or non-urgent articles during this
period of time if you can.

While I'm at it, I'd like to mention that I have been too busy lately to
get back to the series of "open letters" I began in early May. I do
plan to continue as soon as possible, which will probably be in a couple
of weeks. One characteristic of the state in which I currently find my-
self, in fact, is that there's just so much to do each day keeping things
running that I haven't been able to free up the time to do what I would
need to do to pass off some of the tasks to people who are willing to help
out ("catch-22?"). I have also spent some time partially automating a
couple of tasks I used to have to do entirely by hand, and hope to free
some time and energy by further mailing list software enhancements. I
should be able to start this work within the next few weeks.

Another important task that I'd like to complete sometime during the
next couple of months is to write a comprehensive set of instructions
for using the NativeNet lists as effectively as possible, and store them
in our NATIVE-L "filelist" archives so that they can be easily retrieved
by anyone either on the lists or interested in joining. New subscribers
will then be sent a welcome message by my software here when they first
join that provides basic information and describes how to obtain further
information on more advanced subjects. And sometime before fall, I'd
like to get the subscriber information and bibliographic databases set
up, as well as a gopher/WWW site.

Once all these things have been accomplished, and helpers have been
set up to maintain these things, I'll be free (in theory) to devote most
of my attention to specific projects, like the NAT-EDU "electronic out-
reach" effort and cultivating relationships with some of the organizations
which have been contacting me lately in an effort to accomplish their own
missions of service to indigenous peoples and providing better and more
reliable information to the general public.

Well, I'd better get to bed soon in order to be conscious during the
USENIX conference tomorrow. Thanks for your understanding.

Regards,

Gary

--
    Gary S. Trujillo                            gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us
Somerville, Massachusetts                {wjh12,bu.edu,spdcc,cdp}!gnosys!gst