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Dear all, From time to time members have announced their own or others' recent publications on the Sidney-Spenser list. I take to be included in this statement the announcement of online publications, such as the Edmund Spenser World Bibliography. Circulation of information about these new or updated titles can be very helpful to others, but of course a glut of such postings could also prove tedious to list members. In the past I have tried to pursue a tolerant and quiet approach to these postings, and generally speaking the threads they have occasioned have quickly frayed and ended. But it's probably worth laying down, now, a slightly more formal set of groundrules. 1. Announcements of recent print and electronic publications can be helpful, and in that spirit they are permitted on the list where appropriate. List members are encouraged to use their discretion and not to strain other members' patience -- in, for example, the frequency or the tone of these postings. Please also keep in mind that there are other media through which to reach the scholarly community with news about new publications, and indeed some of these vehicles (e.g. The Spenser Review) are designed to perform just this function. Let's try to keep forks in the fork drawer, where we can. 2. An announcement is not a sales pitch. If you would like to announce a publication that you are confident will be of interest to the list membership, and you are reasonably sure that this is the appropriate forum for its presentation, please keep your announcement short and direct. Web links to publishers' promotional material can, in such emails, cover a multitude of sins. If things get out of hand, I'll review the matter and make a new set of suggestions. If anyone would like to comment on what I've said here, please feel free to write to me *privately*, and I will compile a digest of responses to forward to the list at an appropriate moment. Thanks for your patience. andrew Andrew Zurcher Queens' College Cambridge CB3 9ET United Kingdom +44 1223 335 572 hast hast post hast for lyfe