Dear Mark Twain Forum members: I am writing to inform you that sometime in the next six months, I expect to have the Union Catalog of Clemens Letters and the Union Catalog of Letters to Clemens accessible via the internet. In the process of moving from the alphabetical column-format appropriate for hard-copy browsing to the indexed format typical for online database searching, I am reviewing both databases for changes that will serve catalog users better, and I invite you to make suggestions. Internet access, which has been a goal of mine for several years, was pushed suddenly into urgent priority when I attempted to print out the revised catalogs for MTP this fall. The fifty or so programs that sort and print the catalogs (developed over about fifteen years) failed to work because UC Berkeley has ceased to support that programming language! The choice between translating the programs into a supported language or putting the same energy into internet-loading was fairly obvious. Although I have not had time to finalize the procedures for database conversion, the following changes are likely. I will merge the two databases into a combined Union Catalog of Clemens Correspondence. Search terms (writer/addressee) will successfully limit results to what would formerly have been in one or the other database. I will rid the databases of any abbreviations in personal names, places, and notes that were required only because of column-size limitations. I will probably convert dates to something closer to normal, i.e. 31 March 1889 instead of 1889.03.31. I may also convert places, for instance CT.Hartford to Hartford, Conn. I expect that search results will be displayed in chronological order, although if my programmer can provide options I know that this would be desirable at least for what has been the Source-Addressee List. I will expect at least two search terms to be usable for searches but am not sure whether more than that will be possible. At any rate, those of you who have occasion to use the catalogs and have missed out on corrections and additions over the past years will be glad to have access to a frequently updated set of data. Although the programmer thinks that internet-access will occur fairly quickly, I am banking on lots of technical difficulties and thus am conservatively predicting six months. Meanwhile, comments and suggestions are welcome. I am briefly resubscribing to the forum so as to see any comments (for the most part, I can't handle the volume of mail) so for a while you may post anything to the forum. Or reply directly to me at: [log in to unmask] All the best, Paul Machlis