A social history of Bitnet and Listserv, 1985-1991

After the engineers had built computer networks, users had to build the social networks that made them useful. Listserv, the combined mailing list and file server, was an important tool for those interested in building network-based organizations. It first appeared on Bitnet, an academic network based on IBM computers. The early versions of Listserv became operational in the mid-1980s and its early archives show how network users learned to use the software and, perhaps more importantly, how to manage network-based organizations.