Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0000173, Mon, 10 Jan 1994 14:12:39 -0800

Subject
Nabokv-L Subscribers
Date
Body
I have just been going over the NABOKV-L subscription list and
thought I might pass on some tidbits. The net got underway in March of
1993 and now has about 80 subscribers. I would be hard put to provide a
typical profile since subscribers run the gamut from curious
undergraduates to the major names in Nabokov studies. The following
information is based upon my casual knowledge about members. Twelve have
published books on Nabokov. An additional 14 have published articles.
(Quite possibly the number is higher.) Several more are doing or have done
dissertations on VN. Most of the subscribers are, of course, from the US,
but there are one or more from Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Finland,
Israel, The Netherlands, & Sweden.
Although there have been a much appreciated handful of steady
contributors, a discouraging amount of the material has been supplied by
the editor. The eighty subscribers constitute a formidable pool of
knowledge about Nabokov, and I am sometimes puzzled that so few people
draw upon the resources afforded by the net--either to float new ideas or
get questions answered. And even more by the lack of response to
occasional queries. (On the other hand, the guy in England who needed a
quote from MARY identified so he could win a car contest got his answer.
Since no "thank you note" has arrived, I assume he didn't win.)
In particular, I would like to urge the following. All subscribers
who are working on Nabokov projects send the list a brief description. If
you know of scholars who are working on Nabokov but who are not E-mail
users, an account of their current activities would be useful--if, of
course, they are willing to provide the information. If grad students are
working under your supervision, it would be good to know their topics. If
nothing else, such an exchange might eliminate duplications, and, better
yet, promote contacts among people working on closely related topics. All
messages to NABOKV-L are automatically archived, so the information would
be "permanently" available.
It is my hope that in 1994 NABOKV-L will become
more, if you will pardon the phrase, "interactive".
Editor