What is Listserv?

The purpose of LISTSERV is to disseminate a single message simultaneously to a group of people (subscribers). The main goal is to provide an additional option for mass mailing to enable effective communication with other schools, institutions, businesses or individual subscribers via newsletters, announcements, news alerts, press releases, promotional offers etc.

Should I use a Listserv list (this website) or Distribution list (LDAP)

Your choice depends on the list's purpose and size. If you wish to send messages regularly to the same group of people with U of M e-mail address then you should use a distribution list. Distribution lists are by far the easiest to manage. Let's say announcements need to be sent out to a group of U of M staff, employees, or students with @memphis.edu addresses. In this case distribution group should be requested.

If your list contains external addresses such as someuniversity.edu, yahoo.com, gmail.com, aol.com, etc, then a Listserv list should be used for sending mass mail. Listserv lists can be a little more complex, but they provide more options for list owners and subscribers.

Can I simply email recipients with my University-provided Live@edu email account?

The Listserv service is considered an additional feature for some mass mailing operations on campus.

The MS Live@edu email service has a limitation of 1500 emails per day. This limitation is imposed by Microsoft and the University has no control to increase or eliminate this limit.

Who may be affected by the limitation:

Users who maintain their client-based distribution lists or contact list and they send more than 1500 emails per day. Client-based distribution lists are broken into individual email addresses by Outlook. Every recipient of an email is counted towards the 1500 emails per day sending limit. In this case Listserv service can be an alternative solution to address this limitation.

Who is not affected by the limitation

Users that send e-mail to server-based distribution lists. Examples: All Faculty Staff and Students, Course groups: ENGL1010005.2011S. Nothing changes for such users and there is no need to use Listserv in this case.

How do I delete my Listserv list?

Submit a request via Helpdesk ticket to Tech Support asking that the list be deleted/retired. Please be aware that deleting a listserv will delete its message archive, and message archives cannot be backed up or transferred between lists. Note that your request must come from one of the email addresses that owns the list. Please don't simply abandon the list when you no longer need it.