I personally don't have any objections to this, and in fact, would be
interested to find out what you discover. Make sure you check with your IRB
to see if they require anything (sometimes even an anonymous survey can
require IRB approval) if you are considering publishing your results.

Also, if you are concerned or interested about any potential ethical
issues, you may want to check out the Assocation of Internet Researchers:
http://aoir.org/

Edward

On Mon, Jun 4, 2012 at 4:44 PM, Paul Orkiszewski
<[log in to unmask]>wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I'm interested in analyzing the list archives with a goal of studying how
> concepts move through the list over time, the relationship (or
> non-relationship) between discussions in the list and eventual
> implementations and practices in the broader library community, the
> zeitgeist over time of an active development community, etc.  I'm not sure
> about the tools and products at the moment, but the outcomes would be
> anonymous and there would be no e-mail harvest of any kind, especially and
> specifically any commercial harvesting.  An initial idea as an example of
> what I'm thinking about is to generate word clouds that could give a
> snapshot of what's going on over some defined period of time, or concepts
> most closely associated with a particular term, or an overlap analysis
> against one of the library science databases.  Stuff like that.
>
> Eric Lease Morgan, the list admin, can provide an archive of the list, but
> I wanted to check with all of you before I asked for it.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Paul
> --
>
> ------------------------------**------------------------------**
> ------------
> *Paul Orkiszewski*
> Coordinator of Library Technology Services / Associate Professor
> University Library
> Appalachian State University
> 218 College Street
> P.O. Box 32026
> Boone, NC 28608-2026
>
> E-mail: [log in to unmask]
> Phone: 828 262 6588
> Fax: 828 262 2797
> ------------------------------**------------------------------**
> ------------
>