Dear members: This month marks the fifth anniversary of the Mark Twain
Forum, and I'd like to thank you for your steady contributions, since
these form the basis of the Forum.  I've wanted the Forum to be scholarly,
informative, and pleasurable, and to connect Twainians in diverse places
who otherwise would not have met so easily--and I'm happy to see that it
seems to have been working pretty well.

Thanks especially to the book reviewers (whose names can be found on our
web page; three stars for Wesley Britton!) and to Kevin J. Bochynski for
helping to ensure that the Forum has timely information; somehow, Kevin
is always a step ahead, and so I thank him on behalf of us all for
sharing information with us.

While I'm posting this non-Twainian message, please allow me to post
some administrivia regarding the Forum that I hope will be useful, since
some sections of the Survival Guide are out of date.

UNSUBSCRIBING

If you want to sign off the list, just send a message to
<[log in to unmask]> containing the single line:

     SIGNOFF TWAIN-L

Please note that this command should be sent to the listserv address
cited above, not to TWAIN-L.

SIGNATURES ON POSTINGS

Long signature files are generally discouraged on mailing lists like the
Forum, since they make the log files longer than necessary, and this
increased size means that they take longer to print, search, download,
etc.  An appropriate sig file contains only your name, e-mail address,
and (if you like) your institution.  Especially if you're a frequent
poster to the Forum, please consider whether your sig file can be
shortened.

On the same note: when replying to a query, please do not quote the
entire original message in your reply.  If you think your message would
be ambiguous without quoting any of the original message, please quote
only the relevant part(s).

I can't reasonably enforce these guidelines--since the Forum is
generally free-wheeling--but can only ask that you consider them when
you post to the list.  It will save a good deal of disk space for me and
for other members who download the logs, and (I hope) increase the
general enjoyment for all members by ensuring that postings contain
mostly Twainian content.

TWAINIAN QUERIES

Before posting any query about Mark Twain, you should at least consult
the following books:

     R. Kent Rasmussen.  _Mark Twain A to Z: The Essential Reference to
     His Life and Writings_.  New York: Facts On File, 1995.  New York:
     Oxford University Press, 1996.

     J. R. LeMaster and James D. Wilson, eds.  _The Mark Twain
     Encyclopedia_.  New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1993.

Other research suggestions may be found in the Forum's Survival Guide.
Please be considerate of your fellow Forum members by not cluttering
their mailboxes with queries that may be answered at the library.  Many
members are on commercial e-mail services and must pay for the use of
e-mail.

DIGESTS

The Forum has become increasingly busy, and so you may be interested to
know that a digested version of the Forum was made available a little
over a year ago.  Your default subscription schedule is that you'll
receive individual Forum postings as they appear, whenever they appear.
If you don't care to have a large load of such individual messages in
your e-mail account, and if you don't need to hear about Twain every
day, you can request the digests option.  When you set your subscription
to receive digests, all of the Forum postings from the preceding week
are consolidated into a single message, with a summary-by-subject at the
top, and sent to you on Monday morning (which is surely a great way to
start your week).

To set your subscription to digests mode, just send a message to
<[log in to unmask]> containing the single line:

     SET TWAIN-L DIGEST

Should you wish to resume receiving messages the moment they appear,
send the following command:

     SET TWAIN-L NODIGEST

Again, please be careful to send all such commands to the listserv
address cited above, not to TWAIN-L.

If you prefer to use the Web to perform these functions, just leap to
the Forum's web interface, a link to which may be found on TwainWeb (the
Forum's web page), at the following URL:

     http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/www/forum/twainweb.html

QUESTIONS, COMMENTS

If you have problems undertaking any of the technical functions of the
list, please send a message directly to me and I'll be glad to help as
best I can.  If you've received error messages from listserv, please
forward them to me so that I can better diagnose the problem.

Thanks again for a great five years!

Taylor Roberts
Coordinator, Mark Twain Forum