The Internet is a resource for all of this and much more. You can access a lot of it through mailing lists, which actually are groups of people interested in certain subjects.
Members of the list send messages to a group address, and everyone on the list receives them as e-mail. As a subscriber, you will get messages 24 hours a day, which enables you to keep up with the latest information as it's sent out.
There are literally thousands of mailing lists. Some are more specific than others. Because many universities use the Internet as a research tool, a large percentage of mailing lists are academically oriented -- and highly specialized. However, there are also broad and narrow mailing lists on almost any subject that might be of interest to you.
First, you can check the newsgroups news.newusers and news.groups for interesting mailing lists. And, though I don't recommend this, you can also find many mailing lists by sending an e-mail to listserv@bitnic.educom.edu. Put the words List Global in the body of your mail message. Don't put anything else in the body (or the subject line). In a matter of days or hours, a machine will send you mail with a very large number of mailing lists.
Another way to find mailing lists, or lists of mailing lists, is to use Gopher. This is certainly easier than wading through a text file, but you also have to trust your luck a bit in Gopherspace. Still, most university Gophers have links to mailing list descriptions, or to a mailing list archive, which means you can read portions of the information a mailing list group previously sent out.
That's how many pages of mailing lists are in Eric Braun's The Internet Directory (Fawcett Columbine [Ballantine Books]). It has the advantage of combining most of the available descriptive information from many Internet sources.
Of course, the disadvantage of books about the Internet is that information dates so quickly. Still, The Internet Directory is a good place to start.
All of these sources contain subscription information for mailing lists. You subscribe to a mailing list by sending e-mail to a subscription address, often with the single word Subscribe in the body of the message. It's important to carefully follow the subscription directions for each list, because they vary from one to another. If you need help, you can generally send mail to the group's subscription address, with the single word Help in the body of the text.
You should receive an e-mail reply that tells you how to join the group. The reply also informs you about quitting the group, so save it in a file that you can retrieve later. And, by the way, there really is a list about bagpipes.
-- James H. RobertsPeople on the Internet have become quite adept at inserting emotion and self-expression into computer messages by using typographic characters and other tricks of the keyboard. With a winking smiley '-) to Seth Godin, compiler of The Smiley Dictionary (1993, Peachpit Press), here are a few ways you can spice up your messages and let your personality shine through the Internet.
:-) Classic smiley (-: Left-handed smiley ,-} Wry and winking smiley 8-0 "Omigod!!" (:-( Very unhappy smiley ;-( Crying smiley :-/ Skeptical smiley :-> Sarcastic smiley :-@ Screaming smiley :-* Kiss :-X A big wet kiss :-<> Open-mouthed kiss >:-> A very lewd remark was just made :-& Tongue-tied :-6 Smiley after eating something spicy :-[ Vampire smiley :-E Bucktoothed vampire :-a Smiley touching her tongue to her nose @:-) Smiley wearing a turban (8-0 It's Mr. Bill! :-e Disappointed smiley :-S What you say makes no sense X-( You are brain dead |-o Bored smiley 8:-) Glasses on forehead 0|-) Taoist monk :-$ Biting one's tongue :-`| Smiley with a fever #-) Haight-Ashbury smiley <g> Grin <l> Laugh <s> Sigh <jk> Just kidding <i> Irony < > No comment \\// Live long and prosper