Hello emailers, Sorry I haven't gotten back to your questions, but I was unable to send email. :) Biblionix's initial emails are not a problem; however, if we get a number of bounces because of our domain name (when people press the junk mail buttons enough, we get flagged, even though they had to *sign up* for our due date by email service), we sometimes have to do a bunch of follow up batch mailings. Even though biblionix sends the mail from their server, the mail is still sent under cover of our domain.
Verizon has told me that their policy is absolute and iron clad. There can be no exceptions. One of our staff has Verizon at home and was not receiving our email (not even in her junk mail). She wrote Verizon and asked them why. They didn't know. It's difficult to step into and streamline a system that was patched together from whatever was available rurally 8 years ago. The newsletter is the biggest trouble, actually. :P I was hoping someone has used FeedBlitz, ListPower, sparklit, mailer4u or one of the other cheap newsletter systems. These are services that usually charge very little and ostensibly have simple templates that are very User-friendly. :) User-friendly is key. Cheap is imperative. I was also thinking of moving our email to the GoogleApps system. It is free for non-profits and educational institutions and you can use your domain name. Has anyone had any trouble with this? Has anyone tried it? Is there a Texas-based system comparable? Grande Communications is about as User-friendly as a Piranha! Thanks for all of the input. It's an ongoing problem I'm trying to fix once and for all. Cheers and Best!! Tatjana Versaggi Technical Services Dripping Springs Community Library 501 Sportsplex Dr., Dripping Springs, TX 78620 (512) 858-7825 www.dscl.org -----Original Message----- From: Robert L. Williams [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, October 22, 2009 3:26 PM To: 'Holly Gordon'; [email protected] Subject: RE: [ctls-l] newletter and email solutions Holly and Tatjana: Thanks for the Biblionix info. I checked everything else; forgot to check the ILS software type. Yep, Biblionix-generated e-mails come from outside the library's network. They shouldn't be blocked at all (otherwise Biblionix would have multiple unhappy clients!). Tatjana, are the overdue notices generated by Apollo, or internally in the library? Hmmmm, this is interesting! --Robert -----Original Message----- From: Holly Gordon [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, October 22, 2009 2:36 PM To: [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: RE: [ctls-l] newletter and email solutions Tatjana & Robert -- We even had problems with this at TSLAC, where we controlled our own ISP, mail server, etc. The folks in charge of these services needed to be warned that our Sirsi server would be sending out e-mails everyday at 2am, for instance. Once I warned them that a mass mailing was going out regularly, they were cool with it...until a new person was hired, then I had to start over again. I assume that the Apollo system is sending your overdues for you? In that case, since it is a web-hosted service, the overdues are coming from outside. I'm not sure how this affects your ISP. I also assume that you have asked your ISP to white-list anything coming from Apollo? We send out our newsletter through a list ([email protected]), though that may be more overhead than you folks want to deal with. How are you currently sending out your newsletter? This is a very interesting problem -- thanks! Reminds me that we need to get the Pbwiki site going-- Holly -----Original Message----- From: Robert L. Williams [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, October 22, 2009 2:20 PM To: [email protected] Cc: Holly Gordon Subject: RE: [ctls-l] newletter and email solutions Tatjana: I was going to send this to the list, then I realized I wanted to say more than what was probably appropriate in a public forum. So here are some ideas. I'll keep an eye on any responses you receive on the list, because I'm interested in seeing if others are having the same problem. If anyone responds to the list with any suggestions, I'll keep those in my bag-of-tricks I use in working with my libraries in STLS as well. A couple of questions first. How are you sending the e-mails out? Do you have software that does that for you automatically? If so, does it run on a computer inside the library or outside? I see that your website is a Plinkit-powered site hosted by TSLAC and your dscl.org e-mail is hosted/served by Grande Communications. Some ISPs have instituted blocks to e-mail that doesn't go through their own e-mail servers (e.g., AT&T DSL if you use a dynamic-IP account rather than a static-IP account). E-mail to the dscl.org domain is like that for you, going to Grandecom through Verizon. But it sounds from your message as if there is only a problem if you send a bunch of e-mail at one time. You all's regular e-mail activity doesn't have any problem? There are a couple of possible workarounds. One would require communicating with Grandecom about the e-mail service they provide the library. Do they make it available on a different port? Usually, e-mail is sent on port 25. However, it may be that they can receive mail on port 587, or port 26, or port 2525, or some other uncommon port. If you're using Outlook (or some other software) to send e-mails manually, then you can change the port it uses to one of these others if Grandecom will receive mail on them. If you're using some kind of automated mailing software, you'll need to see if it can be configured to send mail on one of these other ports rather than port 25. Of course, Verizon may block those ports as well, but that's not commonly done. A final option (maybe last ditch effort) that may work is to establish a secondary domain with third-party web hosting account: say, dscl2.org or dsclupdates.org . Cost, about $5-$10 per month, plus the cost of registering the domain, $10/yr. Then you could potentially have someone write a script that would display a web-page form at that site, take your general message and a list e-mail addresses you wish it sent to, and do the mailing automatically for you. Obviously, the message would have to be a general one (in this case, such as "You have an item overdue at the Dripping Springs Community Library." Etc.). There are freely available scripts that could be hosted on the site, enabling you to send newsletters to those who request them (e.g., PHPlist -- http://www.phplist.com/ -- commonly available in many web hosting accounts). This would put your mailings outside the Verizon network, and you would have more freedom in what you mail. I've copied Holly Gordon @ CTLS, just so she knows I e-mailed you. If you have questions, feel free to let me know. I'd be interested in hearing more about the problem and how you work to resolve it. --Robert ********************************* Robert L. Williams Technology Consultant South Texas Library System 805 Comanche Corpus Christi, TX 78401 361-826-7060 -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, October 21, 2009 11:07 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [ctls-l] newletter and email solutions Hi everyone, With the continual spam tightening that is keeping us from sending out overdue notices (much less newsletters) without being blocked by our ISP on an almost weekly basis, we are looking for alternative solutions. What are you all using for sending out mass emails to serve your patrons? We are having significant troubles with our email services and I've been working for more than a month to solve it. I definitely am calling out for some ideas. ISP: Verizon DSL domain email: Grande Outgoing email: Verizon If that looks NOT RIGHT, you aren't the only one who thinks so. I didn't want to put the tech opera out there if no one has anything to say. Any recommendations would be received gratefully. Cheers and very best. -- Tatjana Versaggi Technical Services Dripping Springs Community Library (512) 858-7825 - www.dscl.org In libris libertas
