I think our list archives ought to be public, and ought ideally to be 
available to anyone without even having to make an out of band request 
to ELM. Are they not, can't you just download them from the web without 
even having to ask?  Either way, yes, anyone should be able to get the 
archives to use them for whatever research they want.

On 6/4/2012 4:54 PM, Edward M. Corrado wrote:
> 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
>> ------------------------------**------------------------------**
>> ------------
>>
>