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Electronic mails, popularly know as e-mails are no doubt a necessity in today's fast moving ICT society. Sharing of information via emails have become the order of the day and it is likely that you would send at least one message by the close of this week.
It is estimated that 2.4 million emails are sent every second! This mean some 144,000,000 emails have been sent since you started reading this blog. With such a large amount of information changing hands around the world, it is prudent that we know the standards in making our emails count. Also the benefit of emails to an institution cant be overemphasized. Emails sent and received by a head of department for example may not be needed for reference later, especially if there is a change of leadership.
Thus, today we will look at 10 prudent ways of using emails as generated by the UEAB Library, to help patrons make the most of them.
1. Use The Appropriate Address
Different people find themselves in different situations at different times. It is important that emails reflect the situation at the time its being sent. Thus it is necessary that the appropriate email is used for the right situation. For example, sending a mail on the proposed Library Open Day should be done via the library email. This makes it easy for later reference by someone other than the library who may need that information sent later. If the librarian uses a personal email then it becomes near to impossible to access this information that may be necessary for a report later by a relevant officer who may need to access such a sent information.
2. Have More Than One Email Address
It is prudent to keep more than one email address for different situations. Some have stated the standard as having at least two mails in addition to managing one more on behalf of an organization if you represent such a setup. Thus for example one can have the following mail (the librarian's emails):
a) laryea@ueab.ac.ke
Personal mail gotten at UEAB. Used for communication on a personal level. This mail can however be accessed if need be by the IT Department, for reasons of having to extract mails that have been sent there but are not accessible to the user. This mail will also be used to send mails that shows I work at UEAB, so that recipients can have an appreciable level of confidence in dealing with me.
b) lariodem@gmail.com
This is a purely personal email address that is used to communicate on a more personal level than the first one. This mail cannot be access by anyone, even if there is the urgent need to. Only the provider (and in this case Google) can have access to this and by their privacy policy cannot share contents or access of it with anyone until a court of law declares otherwise. People are usually more comfortable using this kind of e-mail address for very personal mails, preferred over the first one (since in any case the first one came into being only when I joined Baraton University), meaning I must have had this one (and obviously been using it) prior to receiving that one.
c) librarian@ueab.ac.ke
This is mail for librarian and is used, as the name suggest, in situations where the librarian has to send official mails. The current librarian in this case is the only one with access to this mail (though like the first one, can be access if need be by the ITS Department). The current librarian would hand over the password to the next librarian and there is a smooth transition of the information managed in that mail. It can also serve as a historical source document for research since the information remains intact from inception, no matter who the current librarian may be.
d) library@ueab.ac.ke
This is the library email which, like the previous one, is used to send formal messages between the library and the outside world. This mail however may have more than one person accessing it and as such only general messages, whose confidential level may not be high, are sent via it. it is usually managed by the Secretary to the Library, acting on behalf of the entire library. She does not however uses it for sending personal mails since the librarian, assistant librarian and a couple more staff may access to it.
3. Check Your Mail Twice A Day
You may not think this necessary, but emails are to be checked at least twice a day, in order not to miss out on any important information that may require you attention in that day. Since more mails are received generally, due to advertisement of companies, checking mails twice a day will help overcome the issue of having to check through a large number of mails at the same time, with the tendency of skipping an important one in the process.
4. Install A Mail Client Software
If you have your own computer, it is advised you install a mail client which will alert you when you have a new mail. Examples of mail client are Microsoft Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird. A mail client helps organize all your mails in one central location, such that you don't have to keep logging to different mails you have or manage, to know what has been sent to you. Mail clients have the added on advantage of keeping your mails offline so can always refer something from your mail even without your computer connected to the internet. Some mail clients also allow you to compos and send a mail, which is delivered once there is internet. This helps you to work offline and have your mails sent at the appropriate time without your intervention.
5. Create Folders/Labels For Your Mails
To better organize your mails for easy access to important ones, organize your incoming mails into folder that automatically saves your category of mails. To do this you will need to check with your mails service if that feature is available. Most mails services thankfully have this feature.
USING YOUR UEAB MAIL
At the University of Eastern Africa, Baraton, you have tapped into a great potential to shine and make it. It is therefore very necessary that you make use of all available tools at your disposal to achieve your academic goal.
One of the things you might want to consider to use frequently is your UEAB email address. This mail is set up for you at the beginning of your university life (either by the ITS department or the Library) and is expected to be one of your means of communicating with the university.
For some reasons, some members of the UEAB community have avoided using their UEAB emails. A large number of these have forgotten their usernames or passwords or frankly, as the case often is, both!
There are some benefits of using your UEAB mail however, which you may not know and which is making you loos out on a number of happenings and goodies at the university. The email is a google mails that provides:
access to instant information as sent to the entire UEAB community (using ueab@ueab.ac.ke). This means when information is to be passed to the entire UEAB community (and it not being prudent to send to all email addresses with the university) the sender only has to enter ueab@ueab.ac.ke and all UEAB email provided addresses (such as laryea@ueab.ac.ke) will receive such information.
a large storage base for your files in Google Drive, a service attached to your UEAB mail. This helps in keep all your electronic files, including videos, audios and pictures, safe and retrievable at anytime and anywhere.
other google services such as docs, sheets and presentations that could be used and stored directly in your google drive. These services can be a substitute for the popular Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint, in the event you do not have your own computer at that time. One could use any of the the computers available at our laboratories and access these files later.
The UEAB Library has training sessions on how to use Google Services and would be glad to be of assistance to you should you need that service. Just send us a request mail and we will take it up from there.
Thus emails have become the fuel by which the world moves and it behooves on us to make every effort to be part of this which has become a necessity to academic pursuit.