We just had a discussion on the appropriateness of advertisments on MLA-L. As you would expect, opinion was devided. Some (including me) felt that brief annoucements of a commerical nature would be OK and useful (announcing new catalogs, new products and so forth with instructions about how to obtain additional information). Music publishing (i.e. classical music publishing which is a major focus of a lot of public and academic music libraries) is still close to being a cottage industry (that' also true for recordings besides the Sony's and EMI's who rely on the pop market anyway). From my perspective, it's important to maintain close relations between the library and commercial communities. Others adamantaly opposed "junk mail" in the MLA-L. There was no clear consenses; typically the matter has been referred to a committee. P.s. BTW, over the past 6 years, there have been no more than a handful of commercial announcements, and no public complaints about those either (NB--MLA-L is also not moderated). *GO* Cordially, forever more, *!!* A. Ralph Papakhian, Music Library (Co-Listowner for MLA-L@IUBVM) *IU* Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405 (812) 855-2970 [log in to unmask] [log in to unmask]