Proslib

Mailing List
Name:	Proslib (The Professionals Library)
Date(s):	mid-1990s-present
Moderated:
Moderators/List Maintainers:	hagsrus (Frances)
Founder(s):	Alexfandra
Type:	mailing list, library
Fandom:	The Professionals
URL:	https://groups.io/g/proslib/
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Proslib is an abbreviation for The Professionals Library.

It is used to refer to a mailing list that was formed in the mid-1990s to help distribute circuit stories to fans of the TV show The Professionals.

Various Incarnations

The mailing list has had several incarnations.

In 1993, the list was a simple e-mail distribution list maintained by Alexfandra . Alex kept a list of circuit stories that were being typed into electronic format and coordinated typists, so that no one typed a story twice. By early '93, the assembled set of stories was known as Alex's electronic Pros library. When a typist sent Alex a new story, Alex sent the story out to everyone on the Professionals story e-mail distribution list.

In May '95, with about 140 stories, novellas, and novels typed in, Alex gave up the Online Circuit Library and D. Ramsey took it over. In February of '96, Morgan Dawn brought the Pros Online Library to Escapade for people to copy for themselves. By then there were roughly 200 stories, and they fit on 11 formatted IBM diskettes.

By 2000, the floppies had been moved over to CDs and had reached 700 stories. An index of the 2000 library can be found here.

The diskettes (later in the form of a CD) remained the main method of distributing stories until March 2000 when Deb R. created the Yahoo email group Proslib to begin online distribution. [when did the new mailing list mod take over??] The mailing list is currently being moderated by hagsrus. It was updated to 01 January 2020.

The most recent version of which is still active on Yahoo Groups. The list is still used to distribute newly typed-up circuit stories, as well as for posting of new stories.

For more details about the ups and downs of the Online Circuit Library see: Next Came The Online Library.

Other Dates and Names

Other fans remember the origins of the circuit story mailing list differently: according to D. Ramsey, of ProsLib:

As more and more fans got email, more heard about it and wanted to join. By 1993, the circle had grown to about 80. I emailed out a story every other day or so (it was growing that fast) and I would mail out diskettes (remember those 8-) to new members who joined.

Also from D. Ramsey:

During 1993, I enlisted [Meri] to help me get people to help type, to talk to authors who were shy of having their stories in e-format. Seems funny now, but back then, this was all new. Lots of people were suspicious of the new medium. It opened up all kinds of questions about who controlled stories. Meri thought it would be a good idea to store proslib on this new thing called The World Wide Web and created a web site called the Pros Online Circuit Archive to reach even more fans. Meanwhile, I bought up boxes of the hardcopy circuit from Karen B and sent them to fans in the US, England, Germany and Australia to type up for Proslib. It was a fun, active time. Everything was so new and there was so much energy. By the time I was up to 32 diskettes, thankfully burnable cds were in vogue and so was yahoo. I chose yahoo as the easiest way to send out weekly stories to the over 200 who were in Proslib. Up to that time, I just had an addressee list I maintained in my email.

Other Uses of the Term

The term is also used to refer to the CD of circuit stories that is mailed to fans upon request. The CD has stories that aren't available online because the authors have never given permission for their work to be put up. However, a story that is "on the Proslib CD" or that is "in the Proslib" can also refer to the online circuit archive.

Fan Comments

2007

First, do you have the Proslib CD? If not, get it immediately!! Not only is the Proslib CD a thing of beauty in its own right (thousands of stories, background info, pics, fan art, vids - it's the best fandom primer available anywhere, bar none), it has 40+ stories by Jane. Most, if not all at this point, should be in the Circuit Archive but there are many stories on the Proslib CD that are not in either of the two online archives (Hatstand and Circuit) and some that will likely not ever be online due to author requests.

You can find info on getting the Proslib CD here, amongst other places: http://hatstand.slashcity.net/proslb.html

You can subscribe to the Proslib mailing list here: proslib-subscribe [at] yahoogroups [dot] com

Second, the best collection of readily available story lists can be found through the Hatstand Archive and Proslib. Because of issues regarding privacy and the fact that many early Pros writers didn't use pseudonyms, KEEP IN MIND that the online versions of the category story lists (e.g. AU, Older Lads, Series, etc.) does NOT always include full author name info. The story list versions that are found in the Proslib mailing list archive and on the Prolib CD both DO HAVE the full info - which is another reason to both subscribe to the Proslib list and get the Proslib CD.

The Hatstand Archive has an online version of the Pros Slash Zine masterlist, which pulls together the separate lists of Pros slash Anthologies, Letterzines, Multi-Fandom Zines, and Novels in the files area of the Proslib mailing list (and Proslib CD).