Dear List Owner,

The JISCmail team have been reviewing the search facilities that currently
exist on the service with a view to extending their range. You have always
been able to find public lists by listname, through the category and
alphabetical indexes, and search a list's name, title and description for
keywords. I am sure you will have noticed that we have recently introduced a
search tool that will locate information about the service contained in the
new JISCmail web.

With the introduction of L-Soft's Listserv software version 1.8e the ability
to 'Search the Archives of Multiple Public Lists' has been possible.
However, this has been limited to around 70 public lists. The reason for
this is due to a decision taken in the early days of the service. At the
time this was the sensible decision as it protected many public lists mainly
on security issues. In addition, this particular search facility was not
available and therefore not applicable. Many improvements in security have
occurred on the service since this time that make the need for this option
to remain, no longer valid . We are proposing to change this for all public
lists on Tuesday 1 April 2003, which will dramatically increase the number
of lists that can be searched via this cross list search facility. This will
extend the usefulness of this search tool to the whole community.

The change will be made during the JANET 'At Risk' period next Tuesday
morning. We anticipate that the service will be unavailable for
approximately 30 minutes whilst this change takes place. We apologise for
any inconvenience this may cause.

If anyone has any concerns regarding this change please contact the
Helpline. mailto:[log in to unmask]

Regards
Penny Windebank
JISCmail Manager