LETPRESS List still active?

I haven’t even been able to connect to the main UNB server.

The email list has had some activity, but the web interface has been inaccessible lately. I don’t know why. You should be able to post messages and send commands to manage your account by email. That could include checking that you are still an active member, requesting messages to be sent by email, downloading messages from the archives, etc. You should be able to find a downloadable Listserv manual.

I just saw this post so this may be old news … If you can’t reach the LETPRESS web interface (or LETPRESS archives directly at https://listserv.unb.ca/cgi-bin/wa?A0=letpress), it’s because the University of New Brunswick (UNB) — who host the LETPRESS listserv — is blocking access to the web interface for all but Canadian IP addresses. (They started blocking suspiciously close to when Trump began all the tariff nonsense.)

The simple work around is a Virtual Private Network (VPN) that can give you a Canadian IP and make UNB think you’re in Canada. I’ve been reaching the web interface by using Windscribe (https://windscribe.com/), a VPN that’s based in and has servers in Canada. Windscribe offers a free version that runs on just about anything — Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android, and iPhone — and you can configure it to be active only when connecting to listserv.unb.ca.

Randall

Apparently, the web interface was popular but not many people have tried the VPN route, because there were 681 members on July 4 and only 172 a couple of days ago. I’m guessing inactive members have been culled automatically. I haven’t posted much, but have been downloading and reading the archives, which contain a lot of good information. They also contain posts from people who built the main web letterpress information sources describing their work as they did it, such as Elizabeth Nevin (Briar Press), David Bolton (Alembic Press), David MacMillan (CircuitousRoot). Then there are those who are no longer with us—typefounder and treadle maker John Hern and printing historian Steve Saxe are just two of many. The archives and interaction with the list are still available by email, and I will give a refresher course on how to do it in a separate post as a Christmas present to any old Letpress members who might like to reconnect.

LETPRESS Refresher

With the web interface disabled for most of the world, it is necessary to interact with the LETPRESS list entirely by email. This brings the list back to its roots as an email-only list back in 1995, when the web was so new that very few people knew what it was or how to use it.

If you are a subscriber, you can send a message to the whole list simply by sending it as an email to

[email protected]

If you are not subscribed, you will receive an error message as a result. To find out if you are subscribed, or to send any other command to the program that handles LETPRESS, send an email to

[email protected]

The content of the email will be your command; the subject line is ignored and you can put anything there that you like. I usually repeat the command so that I will know what was in the message in my “Sent” folder. To check your subscription status and options, send

QUERY LETPRESS

To subscribe, send

SUBSCRIBE LETPRESS

To unsubscribe, send

SIGNOFF LETPRESS

To remain subscribed but stop receiving mail, send

SET LETPRESS NOMAIL

To get each list posting as a separate email, send

SET LETPRESS MAIL

To get an occasional digest rather than individual messages, send

SET LETPRESS DIGEST

To have LETPRESS messages you receive identified in the subject line (useful for setting up automatic filing of messages), send

SET LETPRESS SUBJECTHDR

To be sent a copy when you post a message, send

SET LETPRESS REPRO

Your email provider may think messages from yourself are spam, so you might be better off with

SET LETPRESS NOREPRO

To get an acknowledgement that your message has been delivered to the list, send

SET LETPRESS ACK

Options can be combined in one SET command, as in

SET LETPRESS MAIL SUBJECTHDR NOREPRO ACK

The archives are also accessible by email. You can have listserv send you individual messages, search the archives and receive a list of messages that satisfy your search criteria, or you can download all messages sent in a predefined period. I haven’t used all of the search functions, but have used the last one. First get a list of files by sending

INDEX LETPRESS

then have a single file emailed to you by sending

GET LETPRESS filename

for example

GET LETPRESS LOG9501

will send you a file containing all posts made in January, 1995. There’s lots of good information in the archives even if the list is currently inactive.

You can do all this with web mail, but I find it easier to use an email client such as Thunderbird. This lets you keep local copies of everything in case it UNB someday decides to shut down its list server.

Finally, a Listserv manual can be downloaded from the website of its creator, Lsoft. Rather than posting a link that might change, I suggest searching for lsoft “listserv manual” in your favorite search engine.