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The topic of commercial posting on ARLIS-L has been robustly debated on the listserv and in private messages to me. To be clear, the prohibition of commercial posting is not a new policy but an enforcement of a long standing policy from the early days of the listserv. The enforcement is the result of an incident where one vendor felt another vendor had been allowed to post something commercial while he had been denied. In order to treat everyone equitably and to remove the listserv moderator from the time-consuming position of judging content, we simply decided to use the tools we had, our existing policy. What this entire situation has revealed are broader issues of membership and commerce that need to be addressed in a thoughtful manner rather than a hurried response to a problem. Please know that I have listened to all of your comments and suggestions. We also need to look at similar associations for their models. The Executive Board will incorporate many of your ideas into the new ARLIS/NA Marketplace and perhaps into a revised policy for ARLIS-L. We want to treat everyone fairly and still do what is best for the Society. I have taken on the responsibility for the ARLIS/NA Marketplace and policy revision in my year as Past President . While this debate has produced a lot of traffic on the listserv, it is overshadowing important new developments of our organization that have received no discussion. The release of our Multimedia and Technology Reviews is an exciting new development for the Society. Likewise, our foray into virtual conference presentations not only allows those who are unable to attend the Washington conference the ability to observe four sessions but allows conference participant the ability to listen to one session (albeit at a later date) while attending another. It is like being in two places at one time. I am sure the discussion of commercial postings will join many other topics at our 42nd Annual Conference in Washington - now only two weeks away! I look forward to seeing many of you soon. Best regards, Gregory Most Gregory P. J. Most President Art Libraries Society of North America Chief, Department of Image Collections Library National Gallery of Art Washington, DC 20565 e-mail: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> URL: http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/research/library/imagecollections.html phone: 202/ 842-6100 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mail submissions to [log in to unmask] For information about joining ARLIS/NA see: http://www.arlisna.org/join.html Send administrative matters (file requests, subscription requests, etc) to [log in to unmask] ARLIS-L Archives and subscription maintenance: http://lsv.arlisna.org Questions may be addressed to list owner (Judy Dyki) at: [log in to unmask] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~