LINGUIST Fund Drive

[Michael Quinion]

You may know that the World Wide Words list is hosted as a free
service by the LINGUIST list at Eastern Michigan University in
the USA. In the 15 months since that association began, World
Wide Words has grown from about 3,000 subscribers to more than
8,000; it is now the largest list hosted on the system after the
LINGUIST list itself. The message below has arrived from the
moderators of that list and I ask you to give it your attention.

-- Michael Quinion
Editor, World Wide Words


----------------- copy of forwarded message --------------------

> Over the last few years, LINGUIST has grown into a large
> organization. We are now the main source of linguistic
> job-advertisements, and post, in addition, book announcements,
> reviews, calls for papers, conference announcements, and
> discussions.  We run a web site that contains a great deal of
> linguistic information: a list of dissertation abstracts,
> software for linguists, and links to major publishers. And we
> also offer a searchable archive of large numbers of
> linguistics and language related lists, of which your list is
> one. If you haven't checked out our site for a while
> (http://www.linguistlist.org), you might find it informative.
>
> For those who are people are overwhelmed by the volume of
> mail the lists generates, we now offer linglite, which brings
> subscribers one message a day, with a list of the LINGUIST
> messages posted that day, each with a clickable URL that will
> take you to the relevant web page. We hope, in the near
> future, to extend this functionality to all the lists we host.
>
> We also, as you are aware, provide a list-hosting service for
> lists which are relevant to language and linguistics.
>
> Sadly, the list cannot run itself for free. Despite the fact
> that the moderators are volunteers, and we receive some
> payments from publishers and from Eastern Michigan U and Wayne
> State U, we still require over $35,000 each year to maintain
> our level of services. These funds come from subscriber
> donations. They go to pay our student editors.  The machine on
> which our listserv runs costs $35,000 alone, and the listserv
> software which runs on it has cost close to $10,000 over the
> past few years.
>
> We have no desire to spam the lists on our site, asking for
> contributions.  So we are sending this message to you, the
> listowners of the LINGUIST listserv site, asking that you
> consider forwarding this message to your subscribers. Please
> feel no pressure to do so. But we hope that some of your
> subscribers will be generous enough to contribute to
> LINGUIST's upkeep, and consider making a small donation to
> the list. For their convenience, we offer secure Credit Card
> donations at:
>
>          http://www.linguistlist.org/funddrive.html
>
> Or they can send a check made out to the "LINGUIST Editorial
> Support" fund to the following address:
>
>     The EMU LINGUIST Editorial Support Fund
>     c/o Dept of English Language & Literature
>     Eastern Michigan U.
>     Ypsilanti, MI 48197
>     USA
>
> All contributions are tax-deductible in the United States of
> America.
>
> In gratitude we offer the following "rewards" to individual
> donations:
>
>          Shortsleeved "LINGUIST" teeshirt with $30.00
>          Long sleeved LINGUIST teeshirt with $50.00
>          LINGUIST Sweatshirt with $70.00
>
> Many thanks, and our apologies for this message!
>
> Anthony Aristar, Helen Dry, & Andrew Carnie
> Moderators, LINGUIST